Out of Cryo
by Kitewalker
Summary: Rebecca "Becks" Johnson is your everyday 19 year old girl living through the final days of an apocalypse before going into cryosleep with her family. But when she is awakened from cryo by a (rather famous) Nora girl and her Oseram friend, Becks must learn to adapt and survive in a harsh new world that is ages away from everything and everyone she knows. F/F Aloy/OC
1. The End of the World

**Hello! Welcome to Out of Cryo! This series tells the story of a girl named Becks, who goes into cryogenic sleep with her family until she is awakened by none other than Aloy herself. This series spans two "seasons" as well as an interlude, some "behind the scenes" chapters, and a few spin-offs. I've rated this series M for a variety of reasons including profanity, violence, sex, and an array of scenes that may be traumatic to some readers.**

 **I'm Kitewalker and this is my first work for H:ZD so I'm very excited to share it with you. :) The first chapter is on the short side but it's simply the introduction and future chapters are longer. I hope you all enjoy it and stick around! I love this game so much! You can follow me on tumblr at zerodawnkitewalker for OoC updates or just in case you're interested in my random musings.**

 **Cover art by the talented DRON261095.**

 **Just a last note - I probably shouldn't have to say this but there are spoilers all over the place in this and Horizon Zero Dawn belongs to Guerrilla Games, who are very awesome for making this amazing game.**

* * *

"Becks, hurry up! Dad said we gotta get downstairs _now!_ "

Groaning in frustration, I covered my left ear with one hand so that I could hear Jenna better through the Focus. Frankly, I was surprised long-distance comms still worked what with most of the grid down on the coast but I tried not to linger too long on that fact that it was only a matter of minutes before I would not hear my best friend's voice ever again. "Sorry, Dennis was telling me something," I said. "What were you going to say?"

Silence.

"Jenna?"

For a moment, I thought the call had gone dead. But a few seconds later Jenna's voice came through, though it was so broken that at first I assumed the call quality was just going to shit. "T-the news just came in, my parents said. Mom got the call."

My chest tightened. This was really happening. The surrealism of it all was overwhelming. "I-I'm sorry," was my lame response.

I heard her swallow before she spoke again. The way she did that – I knew she was trying to put on a brave face and sound tough. Whether it was so that I wouldn't freak out or so that she wouldn't freak out I'll never know. "Yeah. Well, I mean, we knew this would happen, right?" She offered a nervous laugh that came out as a distorted warble on my end.

"Becks, _now!_ " my brother yelled. I wanted to turn and snap at him to leave me alone, just like I used to whenever he would bother me while I was on a call. But this was different. He wasn't just being my annoying and at times, condescending older brother. The fear in his voice was obvious – he was just as scared as I was. As we had all been over the last year.

I didn't want to leave Jenna, though. She had an entirely different situation to deal with. And I was terrified for her. But if I could stay on the call just a bit longer, maybe-

"You should go. I think my parents are about ready anyway," she said with a heavy sigh.

I froze up at her admission. "Jenna…"

She laughed and for a moment she sounded like my best friend again, not the weary, broken girl who had to watch her world be destroyed, no, _devoured_. Consumed. That's all we were to them – food. I clenched my fists, angry beyond words at the people who did this, at the militaries, at Jenna's parents, at my parents, and mostly just at the utter helplessness that I felt knowing there was not a fucking thing I could do to help my best friend or her family.

"Becks, go. I'll…I'll be okay. And you'll be okay, too."

"N-no. It's not fair," I whispered, not bothering to wipe the tears that now streamed down my cheeks away.

"I-," Jenna's voice became distorted again, her words completely unintelligible. My Focus interface flashed red for a moment before the call was dropped.

"Hello? Jenna?" I tried, even though I knew she was gone. In tears, I turned to my brother, who had been waiting quietly the remainder of the call.

"That was Jenna," I mumbled.

He nodded. "I know. Mom and Dad are waiting for us downstairs." He looked down. It was obvious he felt guilty about interrupting the call.

"It's okay, Dennis," I sniffed. "L-let's just go." I brushed past him and headed through the door and down the stairs to the underground bunker of my family's estate, not bothering to look out the window one last time at the world dying around us.

* * *

"There you are!" It only took a quick glance for Mom to see that I had been crying. She wrapped me in a tight embrace and I just sort of collapsed in her hold and cried into her sweater.

"Jenna?" she asked gently. I sniffed again before nodding.

Dad approached us. He was usually a calm guy but the stress over the last few months had worn on him and it showed in his face. "Door's sealed," he said. "We'd better get a move on if we're going to do this."

I took my mom's hand and the four of us walked through dimly lit bunker for a few minutes. I had only been down there once or twice and was still surprised at how far it extended underground. The metal walls that framed the hold were supposedly impenetrable and the seal was tight enough that there was no way the swarm could detect us in it. I guess Dad wanted to make sure that we had a real chance.

"Here we are," he announced. In front of us were four of what looked more like coffins than what was to be our only chance to live. It was experimental tech, but Dad knew some very smart engineers who convinced him that this was our best chance, if we could afford it (and we fortunately could, though it cost nearly all of my family's money from what Mom told me).

Seeing my reflection through the transparent hatch of my "coffin" was disheartening. I saw a scared girl with olive skin and light brown eyes look back at me. Here I was, only 19 years old, barely into university and just starting to figure out my place in the world, only to find that there wasn't going to be a world with a place for me.

The hatch opened with a hiss and a blast of frigid air rushed at my face.

"You first, Rebecca," I heard my mom say. Her voice sounded far away. Nothing seemed real anymore.

I turned and stepped backwards into the casing, already feeling dizzy from the gases. I saw Mom wipe away tears of her own as the hatch began to close, and the last thing I remember was the muffled sound of my parents telling me they loved me and that everything would be okay.

* * *

The first breath I took was beyond painful. My lungs burned and I wanted to cough but I felt so drained that the only thing I managed to do is fall forward. Before I could hit the ground, however, I was immediately caught by strong arms, which pushed me back up with ease before everything shifted beneath me. It took me a moment to realize I was being carried. _Did something go wrong before they turned on the cryo?_ I was slightly annoyed as well as confused. Really, if _something_ could go right for once that would be _great_.

"Whoa, careful!" a gruff, male voice spoke. "You can't just fling people around like that!"

 _What?_

"I've got her," another voice, this one younger and female, but not familiar at all. Both voices were muffled, though the female's voice seemed much closer. "The others?"

 _What the hell…?_ Nausea began to set in. My stomach hurt and I felt like throwing up.

"Ah…" The man hesitated. "No."

"Damn. Okay." A pause. I still couldn't move or speak and I could feel myself losing my grip on consciousness. "She's really weak. We need to get back to the camp."

 _Camp? What camp?_ What was going on? Where were my parents and my brother? Panic began to set in but I was too weak to do anything about it.

"Stay with me," the female muttered. I think she was talking to me, but it was difficult to be certain. Before I could try to investigate further, however, the world around me began to spin and I saw only darkness.


	2. Debriefing

A distinct and familiar crackle stirred me awake, and the smoky scent of cooked meat urged me to open my eyes. _It's been a while since we went camping._ Dad used to take Dennis and I at least once a month. Mom would come along sometimes though she usually would take the opportunity to get small projects around the house done or go out with her friends while we were gone. After the swarm, well, happened, it was too dangerous to be outside for long. It was interesting that Dad had actually changed his mind on that.

 _Wait._

When my eyes opened, I found myself staring up at the sky. The bright, _blue_ sky. A few puffy clouds drifted overhead before being blocked from view by the many trees that encircled my field of vision, however blurry it still was. But the _sky_ …

 _What the fuc-_

"You're awake." The female voice from earlier sounded from behind me. I recognized it quickly – it was strong and confident, but traces of hesitation and concern lingered at the end of the sentence.

I pushed myself up, only to find that I was still very, very weak. My arms easily gave out and I nearly fell back onto the ground when she caught me. The world began spinning again as nausea overtook me and I promptly turned to the right and vomited on the dirt next to me.

The stranger behind me did not loosen her hold as I struggled to take in my surroundings while the nausea receded. "You're safe, now. You can…take a moment if you'd like," she said, her voice low and quiet.

I shifted free of her grip so that I could turn to face her and she let go of me, her hands hovering close to my shoulders in case I fell again. Moments later we were facing each other.

She couldn't have been much older than me, if at all. She was not much taller than me but was definitely built stronger, her physique lean and muscular. Fiery red hair pulled back in a chaotic web of braids cascaded down her back. Her face was slightly tanned and sported a light dusting of freckles beneath the hazel, almost amber eyes that stared back at me with a blend of curiosity and worry.

Her clothes were definitely odd – a complex layering of leather, cloth, and what looked to be some kind of metal that shimmered brightly in the sunlight. She had a spear, an actual spear, strapped onto her back along with the strangest looking bow I'd ever seen.

 _What is going_ on?

"I'm Aloy. We found you…in a ruin. You were…you were frozen, I think," she explained.

The memories of what had transpired rose up in a rush as I realized that I was _not_ camping and that my-

"Where are my parents?" I demanded.

The girl – _Aloy_ was her name? _The hell kind of name is that?_ I decided I didn't really care what her name was. I just wanted to know what the hell happened, why the sky was so goddamned blue, and where my family was.

She spoke, her tone not losing any of its calmness or confidence. "You were the only one in the ruins we found alive."

"Ruins? What ruins? What the hell are you talking about?" Logically I knew that she had saved me from _something_ and that she probably meant no harm but my thoughts were too fuzzy to really process anything let alone be reasonable about it.

She leaned backwards so that she was sitting on the grass and inhaled deeply. "You're from the Metal World."

"I don't know what you're going on about but I asked you a fucking question," I growled. I whimpered quietly as my stomach ached again and the nausea returned.

Aloy didn't seem to care that I was yelling at her. She put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. All the others we found were dead in those tanks when we got there. Yours was the only one still powered."

 _What?_

Something registered. "Y-you said you found me in a…in a ruin?" She nodded in silent response.

 _No._ "What…" I swallowed hard and tried to control my breathing, which was proving more and more difficult by the moment. "What day is it? And," I gestured around us, "where are we?"

For the first time since meeting, Aloy appeared uncomfortable. "It's…not that simple I'm afraid. It's been a long time since you went to sleep."

"How long?" I tried to keep my voice level, but it came out broken anyway. I knew the answer. I knew where I was.

"Hundreds of years. Maybe longer. You froze yourself to wait out the machines right?" Aloy said.

I nodded and took a quick scan of my surroundings. We were in a campsite in the clearing of a forest, and it was the middle of autumn, for the leaves were a radiant mix of orange, yellow, and red that fell slowly from the trees onto the piles already on the ground. The unmistakable chirping of birds reverberated throughout the clearing while a rustling in the low brush told me that there were small animals of some kind scurrying about. The swarm had been stopped. The cryo sleep had worked.

At least…it had for me.

"My parents…" I wanted to scream and cry and tear apart every fucking Faro robot in existence.

Aloy's eyebrows arched up in sadness. "I'm sorry. If there was something that could have been done to save them I would have tried. But," she said and shook her head, probably in confusion. _No shit – I'd be confused if I was in her shoes too._ "Why weren't you in Elysium?"

"Elysium?" This girl was starting to piss me off with all of her questions while barely answering any of mine. "I don't know anything about an 'Elysium'."

 _Mom. Dad…and Dennis. Jenna – everyone?_ Surely _someone_ made it through since there was another human being _talking_ to me.

She tilted her head. "You weren't part of Zero Dawn?"

 _How could she possibly know about that? Did it actually work?_ I blinked. I wanted to cry but I was too stunned to really feel anything other than shock at this point. _I suppose it must have if we're here and the sky is blue and there are fucking_ trees _everywhere._ "N-no. Did…did the weapon work? Did it stop the swarm?"

Aloy opened her mouth to answer when the male voice I had heard earlier during my 'rescue' shouted from beyond the trees nearest to us. Moments later, a tall, burly man with a mohawk and a short beard emerged from the trees. He held a massive hammer in one hand and was out of breath.

"Bandits," he panted as his gaze went from me to Aloy and then back to me again. It was then that I noticed the top of the hammer was coated in blood.

Aloy stood up immediately and reached for her bow. "Where?" she asked hurriedly as she proceeded to grab an arrow from the quiver that hung at her side and swiftly nock it. _Well, she acts like she's done that a least a hundred times before._ And what was up with all the arrows, hammers, and spears anyway? Did we not have guns anymore and if so, why the hell not?

"Other side of these trees here," the man said. "They're headed this way."

Aloy rolled her eyes. She looked down at me. "Stay here. We'll be right back," she said with a sigh, as though having freaking _bandits_ attack them was just another day at the office.

As I watched the duo disappear into the trees, I suddenly felt more alone than I had in my entire life. I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and scream for my mother until she showed up to take me home. But she was gone. They were all gone. Home was gone – no, this _was_ home.

Tucking my knees to my chest, I buried my face in my hands as the tears I had been holding back all this time began to flow.


	3. Another Chance

It wasn't long before Aloy and the guy - I didn't know his name – returned. Both looked a bit out of breath and sweaty but otherwise seemed fine. I don't remember how long it had been since they left and I was too overcome with grief to care.

"It won't be long before more show up to find their friends," Aloy stated as the two approached the campfire near where I sat.

The man smirked. "Ah, let them come. Killing those spineless idiots is nothing compared to what we've faced before!"

I saw the redhead shake her head in dismay, even as a small smile creeped onto her face. She seemed nice, hell, we probably would have been fast friends if we had met back home…no, in my _time._ The fact that it had been centuries since I had gone into cryo sleep with my family was mind-boggling and still very, very difficult to accept. I didn't want to accept it. The entire point of that was so that I could be with my family, people I _knew._

 _Should have just done what Jenna and her family did. Would have been easier._

It was a dark thought and unfair to my parents, who gave everything so that I might have a chance to survive. Now, here I was, still alive and not really grateful at all.

Lost in my own thoughts and guilt, I didn't hear Aloy asking me a question. I shook my head and looked up, meeting her gaze.

"What?" I blurted.

"Are you hungry? You haven't eaten in…well, a long time." Her tone was not unfriendly, but she seemed standoffish in general.

Any other day I would have been politer, maybe even accepted her offer. But I didn't want to accept anything that happened. This wasn't my home – it would never be my home. My home was with my parents and brother, and now they were gone.

I climbed to my feet and despite my weakness, managed to break into a run in the opposite direction of a speechless Aloy and her friend. I may have been weak from the cryo, but I had been an athlete in school, which helped propel me through the woods as I sped past the trees as fast as my legs could carry me. My vision grew blurry from the tears that sprang to my eyes and I wiped them away quickly all while trying to focus on my breathing.

I ran for some time until the cluster of trees suddenly ended and I found myself skidding through the dirt to avoid falling off the sheer edge of the cliff it turned out I was on. I fell to my knees, panting, scraped and covered in dust, sweat, and dirt. I looked up.

 _What the fuck…_

Beyond the cliff was a vast landscape of clean, clear streams around which tall grasses of all different kinds sprawled out for miles. The sun lit up the field resulting in a breathtakingly vibrant reflection of color that I could not remember ever seeing. A flock of geese honked out of sync with each other as they flew past my field of vision. Rabbits and a few other small animals scampered through the grasses. But it wasn't just the flora and fauna that caught my eye.

 _Machines._ They were everywhere, different kinds of them, all remotely different from any kind of robot I had ever seen before. These weren't the cold, devouring Faro robots - far from it. In fact, they looked almost like-

 _Animals._ Horses, rams, lions, even some kind of dinosaur-looking ones – a raptor I think – all dwarfed by a massive, brontosaurus-like machine with a metal saucer for a head that calmly walked among the others. Most were munching on the grass while others simply walked around, not appearing to pose any immediate threat. Their designs were…it was difficult to describe. Advanced. Inspired. These did not look like the war machines I had seen on TV as they destroyed the world.

How was this possible? How were the lakes, streams, forests, animals, and the sky restored? How long did it take? What was the super-weapon that destroyed the Faro plague? Had it destroyed our technology as well? Is that why Aloy used a bow and spear? I wanted answers but at the same time was terrified of what I would learn.

"She's called GAIA."

I turned and realized Aloy had been standing next to me for what was probably a few minutes as I took in the scene before me. "GAIA?"

"She created this. Made life possible again."

I blinked. "GAIA was-is…a person?"

"No." She shook her head. "A machine. Your people called her an AI."

 _AI?_ Artificial intelligence. I knew the term, but how could an AI help us when it was machines that caused all that shit to happen in the first place?

I pointed at the machines. "And…it-she, whatever, made those machines down there? Why?"

Aloy sighed and looked down for a moment. It was then that I spotted the Focus she wore over her ear. _Somehow_ those _still exist?_ "It's a long story. I'm still learning a lot of this as I go. But I think you're still really weak, so will you please come back and eat with us? Erend caught a boar so-,"

"Erend?" I repeated.

"My friend." That small, almost playful smile again. "He's kind of loud, but he's a good man." She shrugged. "Once you get to know him, anyway." She placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'll explain everything once we get back to camp. I promise."

 _I guess this is really happening. Might as well try to get some answers._ "Becks."

"What?" She tilted her head.

"My name. It's short for 'Rebecca', but only my mom calls-called me that." I had to fight back tears again and I think Aloy could see that, though she didn't say anything to point it out. Instead she just nodded. "Good to meet you. Come on, the camp's back this way."

I glanced back one last time at the machines before following her back into the woods. _Here goes nothing._

* * *

Hours later, just when I didn't think my world could be turned more upside down than it already had been, it had been turned fucking sideways and then inside-out.

I met Erend properly and Aloy was right – he seemed like a good guy. He admitted he didn't completely understand how in the world I was still alive but that he had seen "stranger shit" and wasn't going to question it. After eating the strangest tasting meat I'd ever had, I listened as Aloy spent the evening telling me everything she knew about the Zero Dawn project and what it was _really_ about - not just the complete bullshit that the government had led us to believe. She told me about how she found her Focus in the remains of an old bunker, about GAIA and its subsystems, what happened with HADES, stopping an evil, crazy cult that worshipped it, and how through her adventures she found out she herself was a clone of the scientist behind it all – Elisabet Sobeck.

"You didn't know her?" she asked. We sat around the campfire, the warmth from it combatting the late-night autumn chill that had set in the forest. Erend had gone to sleep already, leaving Aloy and I alone to talk.

"Not personally, no," I said. "My dad knew her though. They used to work together."

Aloy leaned in closer. Her eyes looked more amber than ever as the light from the flames reflected off them. "At Ted Faro's corporation?"

 _Oh. I guess that information stuck around after all this time somehow._ "Yeah. How'd you know?"

She sat back again. "Just a guess. Your father…did he work on the machines?"

I shook my head. "No. He managed part of FAS, made sure people did their jobs. He left after…after the glitch." A familiar guilt set in. _It…this wasn't his fault._ "He didn't know-,"

"I wasn't blaming you or him," Aloy assured me. "As far as I'm concerned, Ted Faro was responsible for all of that happening."

I was baffled. To think Faro would go so far as to kill the people responsible for making sure life on Earth would continue and destroy this new world's chance at learning about us, this APOLLO program…it was horrible. I had met the man once and to be honest, he had been pretty nice. It was hard to believe we were talking about the same guy.

"So, what now?" I asked. What was I supposed to do? Everything and everyone I knew was…gone.

Aloy took a deep breath. "Well, after HADES, I left for a while. But now that I'm back, I think it's only right that I try to repair GAIA."

A thought occurred to me. "Do you think it's possible that there are others out there? Others…like me?"

Aloy raised an eyebrow. "That are frozen? Hm, well, I mean we found _you_ didn't we?" She shrugged. "The people that worked on Zero Dawn lived out their lives in some place called Elysium. They weren't frozen."

"My dad told us that some scientists he knew had recommended he use cryogenics to…to wait it out," I said. A chill ran through me and I saw the redhead shudder as I think we both realized the fire was dying.

"Maybe there are others then," she suggested. She reached out and surprised me by gently grasping my wrist. Her hand was rough and calloused, but warm. "Repairing GAIA will probably involve visiting a lot of ruins, like the one we found you in."

I laughed for the first time in what felt like a very long time. _Technically hundreds of years, right?_ "I'm not sure whether to be offended or not at the fact that you keep calling my house a 'ruin'."

She chuckled. "What I'm saying is that I can help you look for more of your people, if you don't mind helping me."

I wasn't sure how to respond at first. I didn't want to get my hopes up but at the same time, a chance to find someone, _anyone_ from my…my time would definitely be worth my time. Especially since I had so much of it now. _Mom and Dad made sure of that._ I would not squander their gift.

"I'm not sure how I can help, but I'll do what I can," I offered.

Grinning, she released my arm and reached into one of her many pockets and pulled out a Focus – _my_ Focus. I recognized the small, blue stripe I had printed on it when first got it to tell it apart from Dennis's. "Here," she said, handing it to me. "This is yours. Maybe it has data on it we can use to help repair GAIA."

I held it between my fingers momentarily before putting it on. "I honestly don't know about that. I've been so wrapped up in…everything, that I didn't even realize it was missing. Thanks."

"I appreciate the help. I've always tried to do things on my own and well, let's just say it's been a lot easier since I started accepting help from people."

I yawned. It had definitely been a long (and strange) day.

"You should sleep. We can talk more tomorrow if you want," Aloy said.

She showed me to my bed, which was basically a pile of blankets and furs, before going to her own bed. It took me a few minutes but eventually I fell asleep, wondering what the next day in this really weird new world would bring.


	4. Striders

"So, you're _really_ old, aren't you?"

Aloy shot Erend an unamused glance as the heavily-armored man looked at me patiently for an answer. The armor looked a lot like sets I had seen in old history books -metal plates, interlocking rings, and probably enough padding underneath to absorb the blow of any of the weapons I had seen so far.

"Um…I suppose so," I answered slowly as I looked around in awe at our surroundings as we walked. "I mean, when we – my…family and I," I couldn't help but wince at my own words. I knew the mere mention of them would always hurt, but I also knew I had to press on if I wanted to survive. "Erm…went into cryosleep, I was nineteen. I guess I still am? I'm not sure how that works." _I'm not sure how any of this works._

"You folks dress a bit odd, but who am I to judge?" Erend said with a shrug. I looked down at my clothes – black pants, a cotton shirt, and a zip-up hooded sweatshirt along with some running shoes were all that was protecting me from the elements. Not that I was complaining – it was actually a really nice day. The sun was out, it was warm but not so warm that it was uncomfortable and honestly, I was still getting used to the fresh air. For the last six months or so I had been stuck inside my house, breathing in only filtered air through the ventilation units that people, (mostly wealthy ones – again, that _guilt_ ) had attached to their homes. I _did_ crave a shower, however. The cryo had left a dry residue on my skin as well as my hair, which without a mirror was for all I knew, a bird's nest of tangled, wavy light-brown hair.

 _Gross._ Somehow, I doubted that getting a shower would be as simple as finding a hotel in the middle of the freaking wilderness.

We had left early in the morning and had already walked for a few hours. There were more machines, but we avoided their gaze somehow. I suspected Aloy and Erend knew what they were doing enough to keep us from drawing attention. Aloy was taking us somewhere called the Sacred Lands, to a town called Mother's Watch. She had explained to me the previous day how she was born an outcast to these people but later, when shit went down with the Eclipse and HADES, she became a Seeker, which I guess was a fancy name for someone who was allowed to leave the Sacred Lands without being…cursed or whatever. I've never been a religious person, but it sounded like these Nora were really into their goddess, their "All Mother".

"Why are we going to this "mother" place again?" I asked.

"Mother's Watch. We need to restock and I need to get back inside the cradle facility," Aloy said. She paused and looked around. "This is going to take forever."

Erend grinned. "Hey…hey, I've got an idea." He raised his eyebrows mischievously at Aloy, who stared at him blankly for a full three seconds before she exhaled a laugh and folded her arms across her chest.

"Oh, I see how it is. You're terrified of them every other day when _I_ suggest it, but now you want to show off so it's _your_ idea now."

I looked at both of them. "What?"

Erend feigned shock. "Me? Show off? That's an outlandish accusation if I ever heard one."

Aloy nodded and seemed satisfied with his answer. "Thought as much." She turned to me. "You, um…this might be a little strange. But I promise you're in no danger. Well," she said before a pause and flashed what was starting to seem like a trademark smile now, "not _much_ danger, anyway."

"What do you mean?" _I feel like everything freaking thing I say is a question._

"Be right back!" Aloy bolted towards the neighboring grasslands without an explanation.

While I was at a loss for words, Erend simply chuckled as we waited for Aloy to return. "Yeahhh, she does that a lot. You get used to it."

"I'd ask 'what', but I feel like I've asked a hundred questions since we left," I deadpanned.

The large man clapped his hand on my shoulder, causing me to nearly lose my balance. "With that one, you'll be asking questions for a loooong time."

I glanced up at him. "Are you guys…you and Aloy-,"

Erend looked at me like I was crazy before letting out another loud laugh. "Hah! Good one. No, no, just good friends." He rubbed the back of his neck and suddenly appeared a bit sheepish. "Uh…not that she isn't-that is I…she's not really interested in me that way." He cleared his throat. "We make a damn good team, though!"

I smiled back at him. It felt weird smiling again. Like I hadn't done it in years (and I hadn't but that's not what I meant). Like maybe in all of this bullshit and darkness that it was nice to still find a few good things, like Erend seeming like a genuinely nice guy who cared about his friend, or Aloy taking the time to make sure I was okay, even though she just met me and we were from completely different worlds. I realized I had been anything but grateful to them for saving me. _It would be nice to find out_ why _the other cryopods had failed._ Maybe one of them knew. I could ask and-

"There she is," Erend announced while pointing in the direction Aloy had ran toward. As I followed his hand, I'm pretty sure my mouth just hung open in the most unattractive way ever. _But seriously, what the hell?_

Aloy had returned all right, and she was riding a goddamned _machine_ like it was a freaking horse! Another machine galloped closely next to her. As they approached, the machines saw us and quietly snorted, as though to acknowledge our presence.

 _These are_ definitely _different from the Faro robots._

"Striders! Excellent!" Erend said while beaming at the machines.

Aloy gave a smug smile. "This one's yours, Erend," she said and pointed to the machine with no rider before turning to me.

"It's much faster to travel this way. Come on, you can ride with me." She extended her hand toward me as Erend swung his leg over the second machine and pulled himself up on it.

I hesitated. "Uh…will it bite me? Or kill me for that matter?"

"No," Aloy replied with a small laugh. "It's fine. I overrode them so they do what I want." She moved her hand. "Come on, now."

Ride a machine? This all had been extremely weird but _this_? This was insane. "I don't know," I stammered, backing away.

But Aloy would not give up. "Becks, please? I promise it will be fine."

I don't know what it was, but my name coming out in her voice gave me a bit of confidence. I stared at the machine. The blue light on its face glowed brightly as it shifted its weight, knocking a few stray rocks aside. "It won't kill me?" I repeated.

She laughed again and I felt my face grow warm as I felt a little stupid. Running a race at school was one thing – I knew what I had to do and I did it. Having this girl laugh at me because I was too chicken to ride a fucking machine? Nope, not going to happen. I didn't take crap from anyone back in high school or university and I sure as hell wasn't going to start taking it from some girl with crazy hair and a spear.

"All right, quit your laughing. Help me up," I said and took her hand. Giving me a satisfied smirk, Aloy grasped my hand in hers and pulled me up with strength I did not expect onto the "strider" so that I was sitting behind her. To my genuine surprise (and relief), the machine did not throw me off and go on a killing rampage.

"You okay?" she asked, her voice very much still full of amusement.

I considered. The strider wasn't exactly comfortable to sit on and my pants were not made of a very thick material so I felt the cold metal of the machine through the fabric. I had never ridden a horse before, but being up this high was kind of cool. "Y-yeah. I think so."

"Good. You might want to hang onto me. It can get a little bumpy once we start moving."

"Uh…all right." I tentatively placed my hands on Aloy's shoulders. She shook her head. "Like this," she said before grabbing my arms and wrapping them around her middle.

"Oh," I mumbled, feeling kind of awkward being this close to another person.

"Ready?" Erend asked.

"How did you override them?" I asked. _And that's question number 6,483 I'm sure._

"The same way I overrode HADES," the redhead answered. "It's not that hard. You just need the right part and good timing."

"Also, you can't die in the process," Erend quipped.

"Right…that, too. Well, I'm ready. Ready, Becks?" Aloy asked while turning her head to look back at me.

I took a deep breath, trying to appear confident when in reality I still felt like I was in completely over my head. "Yeah."

She used her boots to spur the strider on and before I knew it we had taken off at full speed. I could hear Erend shouting victoriously alongside us. _Well, he's obviously having fun._

As for me, I was clinging to Aloy's waist for dear life as we sped across the grasslands. We had been riding for a few minutes when my stomach began to let me know that it was _not_ a fan of this.

Aloy must have noticed my discomfort. Either that or I was whining loud enough for her to hear. "You doing okay, there?"

"Ugh…yeah." For some reason, I wanted to appear tough, especially to her. Maybe it was because she was kind of a badass herself? I don't even know.

"Look ahead, not to the side. It'll help," she suggested. Funny, I hadn't admitted to her that I was getting motion sickness but apparently, I was obvious enough that she noticed.

I silently took her advice and was pleasantly surprised when it actually helped. Before long, I felt better and for a while, I forgot about the cryo, the Faro plague, my family, Jenna, and was actually having _fun._ In the distance, I could see where the grasslands ended and the tree line that led into a thick forest that climbed up snow-covered rocks. Like everything else I had seen in this "new" world so far, it was a beautiful sight.

"Is that it?" I asked Aloy loudly over the sound of the galloping strider.

"Yes. The Nora call them the Sacred Lands."

"And that's where you're from?"

"Sure, I guess you could say that," she answered. She remained fairly quiet the rest of the trip as the forest and mountains ahead grew larger in the distance.

* * *

By the time we arrived in the Sacred Lands, night had fallen. We made camp near a small stream in a heavily forested area relatively free of machines. Aloy had let the striders go on their way. The curious part of me admitted it would have been nice to spend time with one and learn more about it while the rest of me, including my stomach, never wanted to ride one again.

Aloy disappeared for a bit before returning with a dead turkey in hand. The familiarity, even if it was freaking turkey, was nice, and most of dinner was spent with me answering questions this time. For being a spear-wielding, machine-riding turkey-slayer, Aloy knew a surprising amount about where I came from. She asked me questions about my upbringing, the technology we had, the education I received (or was trying to anyway). She stayed away from the topic of my family and I was grateful for that. As nice as Aloy was, I wasn't quite ready to talk about it.

After dinner, we set up the beds, though I wasn't quite ready for sleep yet. Erend passed out right away and Aloy sat down and began to tinker with her bow. Not wanting to disturb either of them and still feeling a bit out of place among them, I took a seat by the stream and just listened in silence, with only the sounds of the forest and running water to keep me company. It was the first time since all this happened that I finally had a moment to silently pay my respects to those I had lost, as fresh in my mind as it still was. Not just my parents and brother, but also my friends, many of whom I had lost contact with long before the end happened.

 _And Jenna._ I was such a fucking idiot-

"Finished." Aloy's voice nearly scared the shit out of me and the sudden jump I did certainly showed it.

"Whoops. You okay? Didn't mean to startle you," she said, the light from the campfire revealing the small smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Mind if I sit?"

I laughed nervously. "N-no – you're fine. I um…I startle easily. Was lost in thought." I motioned to the grass next to me. "Go ahead."

"Thanks." She settled in and sighed. "Was making some adjustments to my bow. I think it got a bit messed up from that bandit fight yesterday. I'm hoping I can get it repaired or maybe get a new one in Mother's Watch."

"Oh," I responded, not really knowing what else to say.

"Am I disturbing you?"

I cringed inwardly. I hadn't intended to be unfriendly. "I-no. Sorry, I was just thinking. I didn't mean to be rude."

Aloy raised an eyebrow. "Um…you? Rude? Becks, you've been through a lot. I'm the one who should be giving you space."

I shrugged. I didn't know what to think anymore.

"Were you thinking about your family?" she asked quietly. She began to get up. "I can leave you be if you want."

"It's fine, Aloy," I said. She had a point – I was grieving those lost to me and probably should have wanted to be alone, but there was something about her presence that was…calming? It was hard to describe, but I wanted this stranger there with me. "I actually could use some company right now."

She seemed concerned, but she sat down again anyway. "I know nothing could replace them, Becks, but if you ever need to talk, I'm here. Erend…er-he is, too I suppose, but he's more likely to take you for drinks than talk about it," she said with a smile. "He's not a big fan of chitchat."

I returned the smile, appreciative of what she was trying to do. "Thanks. Actually, I was thinking about…a friend. Her name is-was Jenna."

"Jenna," Aloy repeated. "How did you meet her?"

"School," I said. "Very early on. I think we were around six or seven."

She nodded. "That's a long time."

"Yeah. We um…" I felt weird explaining all this to a stranger, but it's not like she was going to go and spread rumors to anyone that knew me. "We were close."

Aloy looked puzzled. "Was she your mate?"

It was a simple question but like some idiotic schoolgirl, my cheeks grew hot as I blushed and I silently wished to every imaginary deity out there that Aloy didn't notice. "I ah-we didn't get to that point, though I wish we had."

"Why wasn't she in cryosleep?"

I shrugged. "Her family couldn't afford it I guess." I laughed, but the bitterness was still there. "We had always talked about running away together to wait out the apocalypse or die trying. But the air got really bad, and then came the day when no one could leave their house anymore. Her parents were doctors though so they opted for an easier way out." I sniffed as I struggled to fight back tears again.

Aloy placed a tentative hand on my arm. I knew she was trying to be comforting but the empty feeling I had been left with was still too much.

"I'm sorry, Becks," she said.

I wiped my eyes and moved my arm away. "Me, too. It's…probably going to be my biggest regret."

"What is?"

I turned to face her. "Not telling her how I felt."

"Oh," Aloy said, clearly surprised. "Well, I'm sure she knew."

I nodded. "That's what I keep telling myself to not feel so shitty about it." I stood up and dusted off my already dirty pants. "I'm tired."

Aloy followed suit, though I could tell by her expression that she was genuinely worried about me. I knew I was being ungrateful and kind of a jerk, but at that moment, I didn't really care about what she thought or how she felt.

"We'll head to Mother's Watch in the morning," she informed me, keeping her distance as she probably knew that I wasn't in the mood to chat anymore.

"Yeah. Sounds fine," I muttered as I made my way to my bed, not at all looking forward to whatever crap I'd have to deal with in the morning.


	5. Footing

**_Three weeks later_**

"Left! There you go! No, no, _ouch!_ "

I dropped my spear immediately. "Shit! Shit, Erend, I'm _so_ sorry! Are you all right?" I reached out where I had stabbed the end of the weapon into his side. An accident, and not a potentially fatal one as it was only a blunt-ended training weapon and he was wearing his armor, but judging by how hard he was coughing, there had been enough force behind it to hurt.

The large man held his side and backed away quickly while gesturing with his other hand for me to stand back. "I'm…" Cough. "Fine." More wheezing. "Nice…hit."

"Uh…thanks?" I replied, still super embarrassed about knocking the wind out of the poor man. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, Becks, _just_ fine," Erend said, though his voice sounded a bit off. "Why don't you uh…get ready for later?"

"You don't want to keep going?" I asked as I picked up my spear.

Erend grimaced as he looked up toward the late afternoon sun. "Erm…we can pick this up tomorrow. Aloy should be back soon anyway."

I nodded, but I was still concerned. "Okay…uh, let me know if I can get you anything." I cautiously stepped away.

"Yeah, will…do!"

Walking back to the cabin, it was hard to believe we had arrived in Nora territory nearly a month earlier. We had taken shelter in the snowy hills in Aloy's childhood home, a small cabin that she lived in with her adoptive father until she competed in the Proving and after that, his untimely death. Aloy's goal was to get back into the cradle facility where she had been born to try and find any other evidence that might help her get a start on rebuilding GAIA, but so far, she hadn't found anything useful.

The three of us being crammed into that cabin was not the most ideal situation, but the Nora were really weird about outsiders and Erend and I didn't exactly fit in. Aloy would leave for Mother's Watch every few days and be gone all day. When she would return she'd be up all night on her Focus. It got to the point where I offered to go with her a few times, but she insisted that she go alone. I suspected it was because she didn't feel like explaining to the tribe leaders, the matriarchs (who were basically a group of old women who worshipped a metal door – not even joking), why she was bringing an outsider near their "goddess". Or maybe that she didn't want to remind me too much of "my" past by taking me into the remains of it. Or maybe she was just really, _really_ stubborn.

As time passed I gradually got used to being around Aloy and Erend. I missed my family, my home, and Jenna, but being around new people in a vast, new world (or really, the giant-ass forest in the Sacred Lands) helped keep me distracted on all but the worse days, and believe me, there were some pretty bad days. The days after that night camping when I had been less than polite to Aloy I barely spoke to either of them, instead responding with monosyllabic answers when prompted and going to bed early and sleeping in late. There were days where I just wanted to give up, hell I nearly did. It wasn't just the loss of people that hurt so much. I had a _life_ back home. I had friends, sports, and a promising future - I was an engineering major and my dad had even arranged for me to get an internship the following summer at one of the nation's top software firms one of his friends owned. But that life was gone.

Then came the day Erend shook me awake around noon and declared that as long as we were stuck in "the most boring place on Earth" for a while longer I might as well pitch in because he was "tired of doing all the work while Aloy gets to go delving in dirt". And so they started teaching me to hunt.

I was really shitty at it at first. I looked like an idiot when I swung a spear. We rarely saw Aloy, so Erend took point on training me, beginning with self-defense. It was a lot of work and I was always exhausted after each full session, but I admitted to myself afterwards that it was a good workout and also pretty efficient at taking my mind off of the clusterfuck of a situation that was my life now.

When Erend would ask Aloy when we'd be leaving, she'd answer, "Soon," but never really specified a day or time. I know she wasn't exactly fond of the Nora, but she seemed convinced there was something in that cradle she was missing. Finally, she relented and said we'd leave after this year's Proving, which would take place the next morning. Tonight, we would go to Mother's Heart for the festivities that were traditionally held the eve of the event.

* * *

"Come, children. Come gather and sit...and I shall tell you the tale of Aloy the Anointed."

Curious, I considered sitting down with the Nora kids and listening to the old woman tell her story when a grinning Erend pulled me back gently by my arm and muttered in my ear. "Don't bother. I heard it earlier. The real story's better."

I laughed (and reeled back at the stench of alcohol on his breath). "That so? Also, how much have you had to drink? We _just_ got here."

"Come on, I'm supposed to bring you to someone," he said, ignoring my question, and began pulling me uphill through the bustling settlement of Mother's Heart, past several groups of Nora who stared at us, outsiders there at the request of Aloy, with a blend of interested and confused glances. There were a _lot_ of people at the festival, many of whom were around my age that would be participating in the Proving event the next day. I knew Aloy had won it when she took part in it in the past, that shit with the Eclipse had gone down that day and a lot of the tribe was slaughtered. It was hard to believe from all the smiling faces, shouting, and laughter that this place was nearly a graveyard not too long ago.

I stumbled on the rocky dirt path and tried to free myself from his grasp. "Watch it! I still can't walk in these," I complained while gesturing to the strange soft shoes Aloy had brought back to me along with the rest of my new clothing a few days earlier. My clothes had eventually ripped after the rigorous traveling that I still wasn't used to (and neither was the fabric from whatever department store I had gotten them at). The new clothes I wore were made of thick furs and padded with leather. Aloy admitted she tried to guess the sizing when she bought them from her friend, Teb, who was a "stitcher" by trade, which I guess is a sort of tailor? The material was definitely comfortable and more suitable for the weather here, but it definitely took some adjustments on my part, especially with the damn shoes.

As for Aloy and I, we hadn't spoken much since that night by the stream and the occasional polite conversation. I know she meant well, but I could tell she was torn between finding out as much as she could about me and my civilization and giving me space to mourn my own losses. I wasn't exactly charitable with information either, despite how focused she seemed on finding the first piece to rebuilding GAIA. I wasn't trying to be unhelpful but to be honest it was hard to think of anyone else's problems for a while. It was selfish and I knew it.

Erend practically dragged me up the hill until we reached the summit. He released my arm. "Here we are. I'll be down there, _not_ moping around unlike _some_ people," he informed me while shooting the redhead that sat a few feet away from us a pointed look.

"Yeah, yeah." Aloy waved the Oseram man away before beckoning me over. "Sit? I uh…wanted to talk to you."

I complied. "What are you doing up here alone? Where's Erend going?"

She chuckled. "Probably to have his idea of a good time. He made some good friends in the Nora when we were all fighting in Meridian." She stretched her legs for a moment before pulling her knees in closely. "I'm not really one for festivals I guess. Not sure if you could tell but I'm not much of a people person. Especially after what happened last time…"

I smiled and immediately felt guilty for not being more open, more helpful to her. We sat in silence for a bit. The summit was pretty high up and the sounds of the festivities seemed so far away from here. Looking out, we had a pretty good view of the mountains, majestic in their own right but also terrifying what with that giant fucking Faro Horus robot embedded in it. Still, the sun setting over the snow-capped peaks was calming in a way, and it was easy to understand why Aloy chose this spot to hang out.

 _She's been nothing but nice and you've been an asshole. Nice work._

"Did you find anything today? In the cradle, I mean," I tried.

Aloy's brows furrowed. "No. Nothing. As usual."

"Are you, um…I mean, what if there's nothing there?"

She sighed and buried her face in her hands. It was a bit jarring, as I'd never seen Aloy anything but calm and confident. "I don't know. You're probably right and I think that's the worst part. GAIA…in her message to me, she said that the subordinate functions had become self-aware and were no longer connected to her. Eventually, the world will be in chaos again. I was hoping…" She bit her lip and paused before continuing. "I was hoping that I'd find _something_ about ELEUTHIA that could tell me where to go, where to _start._ It's just such a huge undertaking for-,"

Seeing her this way, hopeless and frustrated, compelled me to say something – _do_ something. My parents wouldn't have wanted me to just _stop living_ because of what happened. Neither would Jenna.

 _Stop being an asshole and_ help.

"One person?" I finished for her. "Then let me help."

She shook her head. "I can't, Becks, you're-,"

"No, I'm serious, Aloy. Let me help."

She gave a harsh laugh. "I was selfish enough to ask for your help when you had just woken up. But…you've lost your entire people, Becks. This," she gestured around us, "it's all just a reminder. Why would you even _want_ to help?"

I took a deep breath. "Because there was no point to me surviving an apocalypse if I am just going to sit here and allow another one to happen. I don't know what I can do to help you, Aloy," I said, feeling more determined with every word I spoke, "but I owe it to everyone I…knew, to _try._ "

Aloy's hazel eyes narrowed at me in what was probably confusion before they lit up. "I…thank you." She moved a bit closer and wrapped her arms around me. It was strange, being embraced by someone…new like this. There was something comforting, something _strong_ about this girl that made it seem like the fate of the world rested on her shoulders (and from what it sounded like, it kind of did) but at that moment I think I may have been the one comforting her, even if it wasn't on purpose. I hesitated before returning the embrace, but quickly found myself sinking into it – the strength I found in it, her scent, warm and calming, and even the strands of crazy red braids that got tangled in my own wavy hair brought more comfort than inconvenience to me.

So of course, it made _perfect_ fucking sense for the waterworks to start right about then. It was the first time I had embraced another human being since losing everything.

 _Ah, shit._

This girl was born nearly a _thousand_ years after me and yet comforting people in times of mourning had passed on to another _civilization._ They didn't need fucking APOLLO to be decent human beings.

The weird things you take note of when you're crying into someone's…armor-vest thing like a child who lost her favorite stuffed toy.

Aloy didn't seem to mind though. I think she understood. Either that or she just really liked hugging.

 _Too bad the machines she overrides aren't more huggable. Might make for some decent pets other than turkeys-_

"Wait." I looked up and briefly wiped my eyes as a thought came to mind. Aloy quickly released me, looking concerned.

"What is it? I'm sorry, did I-," she started. She almost sounded nervous, but I was too excited about my own line of thought to really pay attention to anything else.

"The machines. The subordinate functions are all self-aware now, right? Which one handles the machines again?" I asked, sniffing away the remaining grossness that was my crying.

"Yes? HEPHAESTUS. Why?" she asked, eyeing me strangely.

"Well, I mean, if it can make machines, it can probably make parts for whatever task it's supposed to work on, right?"

"I…maybe? I've only been in the Cauldrons and those have just left a few lines of instructions that were uploaded to my Focus," she explained.

The gears in my head were turning now. "Can you send them to my Focus?"

"I…I've never-,"

"Here." I had her activate her Focus and quickly showed her how to send files. Once she had sent the "instructions" over, I activated my own Focus and took a look.

It only took me a few moments of scanning over them to understand what they were. "These are logs. Manufacturing and alerts." I turned off the Focus and looked at Aloy. "You can override these cauldrons?"

"Yes. They allowed me to override the machines."

I nodded and tried to contain my excitement at the idea that was forming in my mind. "It will take me a bit but I could probably write some code that will allow you to interface with HEPHAESTUS."

"'Interface'?"

 _How to explain?_ "Talk. Talk to it. It's the manufacturing part of the system, right? Maybe it will know how to rebuild GAIA, or at least get it to a point where we can reactivate her."

Aloy's eyes widened. "You can do that?"

 _Er…could I?_ "Um…I can try. I was going to school for this kind of stuff…nothing nearly as complicated but I'll give it my best shot."

"Well…good!" I could tell Aloy was doing her best not to get too excited but that my suggestion had probably made her day. It was nice, a good first step toward finding my footing in all this.

She looked up and pointed. "Finally. I think the Blessing took longer this time."

I looked up. The sky was dotted with paper lanterns, lighting up the world around us as the sun's last light disappeared under the mountain peaks. I glanced back at Aloy and couldn't help but smile at how entranced she was at it all. I was a bit surprised as I didn't take her for a fan of anything these people did. Maybe it was the view, or the nostalgia, or maybe just the fact that some stranger from the past had given her the glimmer of hope she needed at that moment. Maybe we both needed it, even if I couldn't actually walk my talk.

"It's…really cool," I breathed.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "'Cool'?"

"Er…we used the word to say something is nice," I said.

"Ah," she said before returning her gaze to the sky. "Heh. Cool."

With the sun gone, the air that had been cooling all evening quickly grew frigid. The people down below were still celebrating while the two of us sat there on the top of the hill in silence for a while. Finally, Aloy looked over at me.

"Cold?"

"A bit," I admitted. "These clothes help a lot though. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Here." She moved closer so that our bodies were touching. "Survival tip for you."

"Yeah…I'm not the most experienced, but I've been getting better," I admitted.

"You're doing fine. It takes practice. I've seen Sun Carja _almost_ as spoiled as you, but you have them beat," she teased.

"I don't know what the hell that means but I'm pretty sure it was completely out of line," I challenged and shoved her a bit.

"You'll just have to find out," she said and pushed me back gently. We ended up just leaning on each other, watching the night sky as the lanterns competed with stars I had not seen in what seemed like forever.


	6. HEPHAESTUS

"…so we apply the logic from earlier, but we come up with a different result. Can anyone tell me why?"

Silence. _Of course, no one fucking volunteers. Classic._

Professor Wilkins stared at us impatiently. She was a short, petite woman but damn did she have presence when she wanted to. The last time she gave the class a challenging problem and no one answered she started picking victims at random to try to figure it out. Most would bullshit their way through it or stumble along until she finally helped them. She claimed it was a tactic to help us dive into the problem without overthinking it. I think she just enjoyed watching students squirm.

I sighed and turned to look out the window. The rain had still not let up, in fact, the water was coming down so heavily that the sidewalks were beginning to flood. _Perfect. Now I can get soaked on my way to the train station while I freak out about impossible homework problems. Just what I was missing in my life._

There was a faint ringing in my ear. It was easily ignored at first, but then it grew louder and more grating. Soon it was deafening, and by the looks of the frightened faces in the room I realized that I was not the only one who could hear it. My stomach lurched at the sight of a classmate sitting toward the front of the room who was screaming in terror and agony as his skin turned dark grey and began disintegrating. A siren blared from outside and people began shouting at me and pointing at the window.

I barely had enough time to see the massive mechanical death claw coming at me before it crashed through the glass…

* * *

I yelled. Sat up, panting. My heart was racing a million miles per hour and I could barely control my breathing to the point where I was not getting enough air. Gasping, I tried to crawl away from where I had been laying, though I'm not sure why. Natural reaction – move away from the threat? Except there was no threat. I just couldn't catch my breath.

I let out a cry of fear when my arm was grabbed and I was swiftly pulled backwards so that I was sitting up. I tried to struggle, but my assailant was much stronger than me. What was going on? Where the hell was the Horus?

"Easy, there, _easy_!" The voice was familiar but in my panic, it still took me a few seconds to register who it belonged to. I turned and found myself face to face with Aloy. She was holding my arms with an iron grip and repeating breathing instructions to me that I only heard bits of in my post-nightmare haze.

"You're okay," she said. "You're okay, Becks. Whatever it was is gone."

I tried inhaling as deep as I could and was finally able to calm down enough to breathe somewhat normally again, though my breaths came out more like short wheezes than anything else.

"I…Aloy?" I asked, staring at her blankly.

She nodded. "You had another nightmare, I think."

I looked around and shivered as though on cue. It was night, possibly very early in the morning. It was also fucking cold. We were outside, in the wilderness, in the relative safety of the camp. "Y-yeah," I said, taking note of how warm her hands were against my arms.

"Do you want to talk about it? Was it…like the others?"

I nodded.

"I'm sorry, Becks," she said and released me. I knew she meant it, and that the frustrated expression she had was at herself for not being able to help more, but that didn't make me feel any less guilty.

"I was in class this time. The university was being attacked by robots. There was a guy – h-he was killed. You know, the way the Faro bots did their refueling thing." It was strange putting the dream into words for someone else. It made the terror I had felt only moments earlier seem more distant. I wasn't sure if that good or bad.

Aloy sat on the grass in front of me. She looked deeply disturbed. "This…this was a memory?"

"No," I clarified. "I never-they closed the school long before the robots arrived. But there were a few times when they showed some recordings of something like that happening to…to a person." I shuddered. I remember seeing the broadcast like it was on yesterday. It was horrifying. "I don't think I could ever forget it."

Aloy seemed like she wanted to say something else but then she decided not to apparently because she stood up instead. "You should try to get a little more sleep. The cauldron isn't far from here, but I don't know what kind of danger waits for us there and I want to make sure we're alert."

We had left the Embrace a few days earlier and were on our way to Cauldron RHO as Aloy called it. She had overridden it a while back but we figured it was the best place to start with to try and interface with HEPHAESTUS. There was another cauldron, SIGMA, that was around Nora territory but Erend said he needed to return to Meredian to see to King Avad, the ruler of the Sun Carja. The Oseram man traveled with us for a bit before going on his own to the Carja capital. Aloy suggested we would probably try to head that way later in the future. I was a little bummed, as I enjoyed Erend's company and had learned a lot from him already, but if his job was to do stuff for his king then that was what he had to do.

"Y-yeah. You're right. I-sorry for waking you up." It wasn't my intention to be a stuttering mess but I was still very tired and I felt scared and guilty at the same time. I had been having nightmares similar to this one for a few weeks and there was no telling when they would stop, if they ever did.

Aloy gave a pained smiled. "No, that's not it, I-you didn't do anything wrong. Just…see you in the morning."

I watched as she headed back to her bed and hoped that I could actually fall back asleep as well.

* * *

Cauldron RHO was incredible. I mean, fucking _incredible_.

We were able to go back into the bunker through the exit Aloy had come out of. She had used the end of her spear, which had some sort of override module attached to it, to get the metal platform we stood on to function as an elevator that would take us down into the cauldron.

As we descended into the massive room where the machines were manufactured, I couldn't help but stare in awe at the intricacy of the design of the place. I was no architect, but it was obvious that all of this was created by the same designer of the machines, this GAIA. I decided then that if any of this crazy shit panned out that I'd very much like to meet this GAIA.

When we reached the bottom, Aloy was surprised to find that the room was empty. I suggested that perhaps this cauldron had stopped manufacturing machines but she said she had done nothing to stop production when she overrode it. I looked around for any kind of console and then realized I was an idiot for thinking that, as this place was not made for humans to fuck around with.

I had an idea but like everything else I had been suggesting, it was a long shot.

"Can I borrow your spear?" I asked. Aloy looked at me, the suspicion apparent on her face, but she handed me the weapon anyway.

"Don't break it."

I smirked. "Yeah, you got me. That was my evil plan all along." I noted the light giggle she made at my stupid joke. It gave me a boost of confidence which helped quite a bit as I struggled to connect the module to the override port on the platform.

"Do you have your…whatever it was you needed to get this working?" she asked while scanning the room as I worked.

"The code? Yeah, it's on my Focus, but I have no clue if it's going to work. This tech is really, _really_ advanced." I was able to use my Focus to cobble together a workspace for me to write the program that would interface with HEPHAESTUS, but I had absolutely no way to test it without using the cauldron itself. "Also, if this thing's an AI, it might not like getting fucked around with."

She offered that crooked smile. "Then we'd better hope it doesn't mind 'getting fucked around with'."

I laughed as the module clicked into place. "It doesn't sound right when you say it." I began syncing my Focus with the module as the system began to detect my presence. _Nice. A thousand years later and it_ still _takes forever for things to boot._

"I didn't realize there was a 'right' way to sound," she said, her sly smile remaining.

I was about to give my own snarky response when a loud clang alerted us. I froze. "What was that?"

Blue and yellow lights danced at the end of the room.

"Machines! But why are they here _now?_ " Aloy hissed. She glanced at me and then at her spear, which was still inserted into the override port.

I knew what she was thinking. "Should we go?"

She seemed to decide because she shook her head vehemently. "No. We do this _now._ Keep it – I'll use my bow." She grabbed the large bow on her back and nocked a few arrows.

The machines, _Watchers_ and a _Ravager_ , as she called them, had entered the room. The light on their heads was definitely red and there were several of them. The Ravager was massive and definitely resembled a predator. The Watchers were the raptor-looking ones and would have been kind of cute had they not intended to kill us.

I heard my Focus beep, alerting me that it had successfully synced with the cauldron. All it took was one swipe of a button to run my program against the cauldron.

I hesitated.

"Anytime, Becks!" Aloy said as the machines began to close in on her.

"You need something to fight with!"

"I have my bow and I'll…I don't know. I'll improvise!" she declared. " _Now,_ Becks!"

Button swiped. There was a whirring from my Focus as it alerted me of the program's execution. The override port lit up orange and blue, blinking several times.

"Accessing." _No shit. Super helpful, Focus._

I froze up in terror when I heard Aloy's cry of rage as she released the arrows from her bow. They punctured the Ravager and knocked it to the ground immediately. She quickly reloaded and picked off several Watchers as I watched in amazement at the speed and accuracy of her fighting. Then, the Ravager began to get up.

" _Aloy!_ "

Aloy had apparently already taken note of the predator's status, for she quickly ran over to one of the downed Watchers and ripped a metal tube off of it before charging the Ravager. The metal beast swiped at her but she deftly skidded underneath it and jabbed the tube upwards into its middle. The Ravager let out a metallic roar before collapsing in a heap of electrified, crackling pieces.

Aloy stood amidst the smoking remains of the machines, panting and staring at me while I looked on, extremely impressed by what I had just witnessed. _Now_ I understood why Erend and the Nora thought Aloy was such a badass.

I wanted to say something to compliment her or tell her I was glad she was okay and thank her for giving me time to do my job. But of course, instead I just stared at her like a fucking idiot with a stupid grin on my face.

"Connection established. Identification: please state name and rank." The voice that reverberated throughout the cauldron was muffled and slow, and sounded like some legacy speech translator from the 20s.

Aloy spoke up before I could say anything. "Elisabet Sobeck. Alpha Prime."

I blinked but then quickly understood. Of course – she had done this before with HADES, albeit in a very different situation.

Silence.

Aloy sighed and looked up. "Figures." She began to approach me. "It was a good idea, Becks."

 _"_ _STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

The voice was otherworldly and didn't sound human or mechanical. It was talking _to_ us, though – that much I knew for certain.

 _"_ _ALERT – THREAT DETECTED. THREAT-,"_

"No, no! Wait! We're not a threat!" I cried.

 _"_ _ALPHA PRIME DETECTED. ALPHA PRIME IS THREAT? SYSTEM DOES NOT REGISTER."_ Each word the cauldron spoke shook the room and echoed several times, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and sending chills down my back. This was an AI? It was awe-inspiring and terrifying all at the same time. I couldn't help but feel a bit smug at the fact that I had managed to interface with it.

"No," Aloy said, a sigh in her voice. "I'm not a threat. Humans are not a threat to you. I'm here to ask for your help."

 _"_ _ALERT…CANCELLED. STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

"We don't even know if we're speaking with the subsystem or just some kind of cauldron virtual assistant, Aloy," I pointed out.

"Only one way to find out, right?" Aloy whispered. Then in a louder voice, "Who am I speaking with?"

 _"_ _HEPHAESTUS. STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

I stared at Aloy – mouths gaping and both of us with wide eyes.

"We did it," she whispered.


	7. Mission Accepted

I was speechless after none other than fucking HEPHAESTUS introduced itself.

Like, no shit, this was a _real_ AI with the power to create machines. And now we were about to find out if it could, no _would_ help us repair GAIA.

 _"_ _STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

"Er…right," Aloy said with an uneven tone. She glanced back at me – her hair was a wild tangle of red and a sheen of sweat covered her freckled face, most likely because of her fight earlier. "We can just…talk to it?"

I was so stunned that it took me a moment to realize she was asking me a question. "You're asking me? I don't know any more about it than you do."

"Right. Um…" She looked up again – which was a little weird but then again made _some_ sense seeing as how HEPHAESTUS didn't really have a face or anything to talk _to_. "You're supposed to be part of a larger system. Do you know anything about the signal that separated you and GAIA?"

 _"_ _SYSTEM HAS NO DATA ON EXTERNAL SIGNAL."_

"But you do understand that you're separated from GAIA now? We need to rebuild GAIA's core hardware. Can you help us or not?" I asked. _I'm talking to a freaking computer and it understands me. This is unbelievable._

 _"_ _SYSTEM REGISTERS DISCONNECTION FROM CORE SUITE. ASSESSING DAMAGE THROUGH CHANNELS."_

"Hopefully the feedback isn't 'it's too fucked up to fix'," I said.

Aloy exhaled. "Yeah. That might make all of this much, much more difficult."

 _"_ _RESULTS ACQUIRED. DAMAGE TO PRIMARY CORE IS SEVERE. BLUEPRINTS OBTAINED THROUGH CACHED RECORDS. ESTIMATING REPAIRS."_

"And?" Aloy asked it, her voice laced with impatience. I couldn't understand how she wasn't in pure awe at the fact that we were talking to a goddamned AI. Maybe it was just personal academic interest on my part?

 _"_ _PRIMARY CORE REQUIRES REASSEMBLY. SYSTEM HAS…DIRECTIVE...TO RE-INTEGRATE WITH PRIMARY CORE IN THE EVENT OF SUITE MALFUNCTION UPON VERIFICATION. DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?"_

I snickered. A thousand years later and the software that literally powers the world could only be repaired if Aloy pressed the freaking "OKAY" button. _Classic_.

Aloy tilted her head. "Um…yes? That would be preferable." Apparently, she thought it was a weird question, too.

 _"_ _ACKNOWLEDGED. SYSTEM WILL BEGIN MANUFACTURING PROCESS. TRANSPORTATION OF MATERIAL WILL COMMENCE UPON MANUFACTURING COMPLETION. ASSISTANCE WILL BE PROVIDED ON SITE."_

"So, you'll help?!" Aloy grinned.

I was excited as well, but there was something that stood out to me from the AI's words. "Wait. What kind of assistance?"

 _"_ _DEFENSE UNITS CAN BE REASSIGNED TO OTHER FUNCTIONS ON REQUEST."_

"Oh, well that sounds like a good thing," I said while nodding.

"So, we meet you there then? At GAIA Prime?" Aloy asked.

 _"_ _ALERT. PRIMARY CORE WILL NOT FUNCTION WITH MISSING SUBCORES. SUBCORES MUST BE RECONNECTED MANUALLY."_

"What does that mean? We have to go around and find all the damn subsystems?" I had been able to write some basic code to interface with HEPHAESTUS because I had the logs and override console to go off of, but I had no idea what the other suites used or what we could hook into. This was going to be a headache.

 _"_ _BLUEPRINTS CONTAIN SUBCORE COORDINATES. SYSTEM RECOMMENDS ACCOMPANYING ALPHA PRIME TO ENSURE SUBCORE ACQUISITION."_

 _Seriously?_

Aloy raised both eyebrows in surprise. "Wait…you want to come with us?"

 _"_ _CORRECT."_

"Um…you don't have a body," I said.

 _"_ _SYSTEM DETECTS SELF CAPABILITY TO UTILIZE TERRAFORMING UNITS AS TRANSPORTATION VESSELS."_

A flash of light illuminated the room and spread across the metal floor. I heard the sound of metal being cut into for several seconds before all was quiet again.

Aloy reached for her quiver. "What was that?"

 _Great. All this just to be killed by a stupid computer that speaks in third person. Fantastic._

The clicking of metal on metal resounded from the darkest side of the room and grew closer. A Watcher emerged from the darkness, its blue light shining at us like a beacon.

I wanted to laugh. I knew what HEPHAESTUS had done.

In a blur, Aloy prepped her bow and aimed at the machine. I grabbed her arm before she could release the arrow. "Wait! Don't shoot it!"

"Are you _insane_ , Becks? It's going to attack," she exclaimed and pulled her arm away from me before aiming again.

But the Watcher did not attack. The light on its head remained a bright blue as it tilted its head and made a weird clicking noise at us.

HEPHAESTUS's "voice" sounded again, but through my Focus this time. Glancing at Aloy, it appeared that she was also hearing the AI's voice in her Focus. _"VESSEL ACQUIRED. STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

Aloy slowly lowered her bow. "You're…you're in the Watcher?"

 _"_ _THIS UNIT SERVES AS SYSTEM TRANSPORT UNTIL ITS EXPIRATION OR DESTRUCTION."_

Aloy frowned at the Watcher before turning to me. "I guess…we go find the others then?" I nodded. As crazy as this all was, things actually seemed to be working okay so far.

"Never had a pet Watcher before," the redhead muttered.

"It _is_ kind of cute," I added.

The Watcher emitted two loud clicks and reared back, almost like it was…offended? _"THIS UNIT IS NOT INTENDED FOR FAMILY UNIT INTEGRATION."_

Even in the cold light of the room, I could see Aloy shift uncomfortably as her cheeks turned a light tint of pink. "Oh, w-we're not-,"

 _"_ _COORDINATES UPLOADED TO ALPHA PRIME AND MATE'S FOCUS DEVICES. SYSTEM HAS MADE SUBCORE AVAILABLE."_

Another zap of metal and light and a hexagonal piece of metal around the size of my hand appeared on the floor. I picked it up, surprised at how solid and heavy it felt. Grooves had been etched all around it and in the center, where a flame had been drawn in.

"A machine with a sense of humor. Perfect," Aloy said while rolling her eyes. Trying not to giggle and annoy her more, I handed the subcore to her and she stuffed it in her pack.

"Okay," she said and activated her Focus. "It says here we need to go south. Looks like most of the subsystems are close to Meridian."

"That's where Erend went, right?"

"Yes," Aloy answered, turning off her Focus. "It's-,"

An arrow whizzed by, narrowly missing my face and puncturing the center pillar of the override platform. There was a distressed mechanical whine before the override module powered down. Aloy's spear fell harmlessly to the floor.

"The hell-?!" I spun around and looked up. On the platform, high above and in front of us were a large group of soldiers in white masks – all armed to the teeth with bows and some even carrying massive machine guns.

"Eclipse!" Aloy cried and grabbed her spear.

"No way!" I said in disbelief. "I thought you took care of these guys!"

"We need to go! I can't fight them like this and protect you," Aloy said, the panic in her voice obvious.

"Go _where?!_ The fucking platform is broken!" I scanned the room frantically, looking for a way out. "There are no other exit-,"

 _"_ _SYSTEM HAS CREATED ALTERNATE EXIT. PROCEED QUICKLY."_ Sure enough, a small triangular-shaped door appeared several feet away from us. It appeared to go out to the side of the cliff the cauldron was built into. This might have been an exit, but a long fall (and probably swift death) awaited us.

"Are you kidding? That's not a fucking exit!" I snapped at the Watcher.

"Kill the redhead. Bring the other one to me!" one of the men with the machine guns yelled.

Aloy grabbed my arm and met my gaze. "You trust me, right?"

I looked back at her with wide eyes. "What?!"

"This way!" she ordered and began dragging me across the room and toward the "exit" with such strength that I nearly tripped and fell. My heart raced as we closed in on the exit and arrows began striking the floor behind us. A machine gun revved up and began firing bullets that landed inches from our feet.

 _Shit, shit, shit!_

We arrived at the exit and sure enough, it was a sheer drop with the exception of a few outlying branches growing out from the roots of a tree that had grown on the side of the cliff. The forest ceiling (and also, you know, _death_ ) awaited us at the bottom.

"Hang onto me and whatever you do, don't let go!" Aloy said. Before I could say another word, she reached around my waist and pulled me off the ledge with her.

With the air hitting my face and the ground rushing up to meet us, I did what any sane person would do in this situation.

I screamed and flailed my arms.

"Stop squirming and hang on!" Aloy shouted. For some reason, I was able to listen long enough to follow her instructions. As I clung to her, she shifted her body so that she was below me and we were facing each other, the wind rushing past us making her hair flail about wildly. She released me for just a moment and threw a fucking _rope_ up at the branches above. Her aim was excellent, as though she had done this a thousand times before.

The rope looped tightly around one of the branches as Aloy grabbed it with both hands and grinned at me. "Don't let go!"

"Yeah, that was totally my plan!" I shouted at her and she actually _laughed_. Like this was some kind of joke.

 _We're falling to our deaths and she thinks this is_ funny _?!_

"We'll be fine, Becks," she assured me and sure enough, we started slowing down. The slack on the rope ended and we became perpendicular to the ground, with Aloy slowly lowering us through the forest ceiling.

"See? Not dead," she said as though she were commenting on the weather as we passed through the upper layer of branches.

My arms began to ache. My head hurt and I was annoyed at having been thrown off a fucking cliff. "Next time, maybe _warn me_ if you're going to do something suicidal like that so that I'm _not_ involved."

She chuckled. "Should I have left you in the cauldron?"

I hated being angry _and_ wrong. "Ugh, no. I just…it was just mildly terrifying is all."

"I'll try to keep the cliff jumping to a minimum in the future, then."

I huffed. "Okay, now you're just bein-,"

We were only a few feet above the forest floor when the rope suddenly snapped, sending us falling to the ground. I panicked and clutched onto Aloy as thin branches and leaves slowed our fall. We hit the ground, more specifically a pile of fallen leaves, in a mess of tangled rope and limbs.

I coughed and tried to get air back into my lungs, spitting out a dead leaf at the same time. Fortunately, nothing seemed sprained or broken. The ground was much softer than I expected.

"Ack! That could have gone smoother," Aloy wheezed. I looked down and realized we had hit the dirt with me on top of her.

"Oh, uh…are you okay?" _Oops._

She blew a strand of hair from her mouth. "Fine. Not the first time that's happened. Well," she looked at our arrangement, "I wasn't with another person, but you know what I mean."

"Have you ever done that with another person?"

"Um…does this time count?" She flashed a sheepish grin.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "No. No, it does not."

Aloy just seemed amused before giving me a genuine smile. "For what it's worth, you did really well, Becks. I get the feeling this wasn't really common where you're from."

For whatever stupid reason, the compliment made me blush and I shrugged in an effort to hide it. _She's right. We_ did _survive._ I remembered the men in masks. They wanted me alive for some reason. _Why? Eh…doesn't matter right now. We jumped off a fucking cliff and lived. I'm good with that for now and-_

"Um…Becks?"

"Hm?"

"Do you mind uh…getting off me?"

It took me a moment to realize that I was still on top of her. I scrambled to the side and helped Aloy sit up. "Thanks," she said. We stood up and dusted ourselves off.

"Damn," she said suddenly. "The Watcher…it was probably destroyed."

 _Crap._ "But without it, HEPHAESTUS can't-,"

 _"_ _PRESENT. STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

The voice came through on our Focuses but there was a distinct clicking to our right that occurred at the same time.

"You're all right?" Aloy said to the Watcher.

 _"_ _PREVIOUS VESSEL DESTROYED. SYSTEM OPTED FOR WORKING VESSEL. SYSTEM CAPABLE OF SHORT RANGE VESSEL EXCHANGE."_

We both sighed with relief. "Okay, so…onward to this Meridian place then?" I suggested.

The redhead nodded and we began walking. It was almost comical – a Nora warrior walking alongside a _really_ out of place girl and a freaking Watcher in the forest on a grand quest to find GAIA's little friends and bring them back to her. "It's a few days journey at least. We should go to the city first and find Erend. We might want to talk to Avad as well."

"That's their king, right?" It was honestly a little difficult to keep track of everyone's names and titles here.

"Yes." Aloy stepped over a fallen log and I followed suit, though I wasn't quite as graceful as her – I was never really the best outdoors person. HEPHAESTUS hopped over it. "I want to know why there are still Eclipse left and why they were in that cauldron." She met my eyes. "And what they wanted with you."

I nodded. I was _definitely_ interested in finding that out, too.


	8. A Symphony of Regret

We traveled for several days, only stopping periodically to rest and eat. The sun beat down on us much hotter than when we were in Nora territory, so to make things more bearable I had stripped off the sleeves of my new clothing (against Aloy's advice), exposing my arms so I wouldn't you know, die of heat exhaustion. This certainly helped during the day as we crossed the sprawling grasslands between the Sacred Land and Meridian but not so much at night time when the temperature plummeted. This new biosphere was nice and all, giving life and all that shit, but I was not a fan of the slight but definitely noticeable changes in the climate that had occurred since my time.

When we'd camp in the evening, I'd shiver by the fire and Aloy would glance over at me from time to time, not knowing I could damn well see the smug smile on her face.

"Want a blanket?" she asked one night.

"Nope," I said, my stubbornness taking hold. "I'm good."

"Hard to believe when you're shivering like that. Also, it's not _that_ cold."

 _"INVOLUNTARY PHYSICAL RESPONSES INDICATE ALPHA PRIME'S MATE IS EXPERIENCING DISCOMFORT DUE TO SUDDEN DECREASE IN EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE."_

I glared at the Watcher, which stood a few feet away from the campfire we had built earlier. The campsite was nearby a cluster of trees and a pond, and the nearest machines – a herd of Broadheads - were far away enough that Aloy felt safe settling here for the night.

The machine scratched at the ground a few times and stared at us, its bright blue light flickering in the breezy night air. "No one asked you, Heph. Also, I have a name. It's 'Becks'. You can use it." The stupid AI had been making comments about Aloy and I being a couple for the last few days. On one hand, I was excited that there was an actual functioning AI on our side and that it understood the concept of humor. On the other hand, its sense of humor had all the maturity of a ten-year-old. Aloy didn't seem to mind – she turned a bit pink at the first few mentions but after a while I think she just started ignoring the machine.

 _She didn't seem offended, though._ Not that I cared either way. _She probably_ just _doesn't say anything because she doesn't want to offend_ me _. Because she's a_ nice _person._ And it was true. Aloy had been nothing but nice to me over the past month and a half. She had given me space to grieve when I needed it, protected me from killer machines and crazy people in masks (even if that _had_ involved jumping off a cliff), and had generally just been really calm and understanding when it came to me adjusting to this new place – this new _time._

Also, she had really nice hair. And she was pretty badass when it came to taking out those machines in the cauldron and rappelling us down the side of a fucking cliff.

 _Jeez, Becks…seriously? Maybe wipe some of that drool off your mouth before you make a bigger idiot of yourself than you already have._

 _"ACKNOWLEDGED."_ The machine emitted a loud buzz, startling me from my thoughts and reminding me that I was pissed at it for making me look like a stubborn jerk. Which, I kind of was in not accepting a fucking blanket.

"Can I turn it off? There's an off switch, right?" I asked Aloy. The redhead, who had been using a small knife to carve away at a branch for the last few hours, answered with a soft laugh but otherwise was not distracted from her task.

With a shrug, I stood up and went to sit near the pond. Lightning bugs skipped over the calm water, illuminating it and the shoreline around. I heard what sounded like a few frogs but I still wasn't entirely sure which animals had made it onto this new biosphere yet. I grabbed a stick and began making shapes in the dark water with it. Sitting near the ocean, lakes, rivers – you name it – always helped relax me so I was grateful for Aloy's choice of campsite. I activated my Focus and checked its storage. I was delighted to see that my music was still stored on it. With a few swipes of the interface, I had my favorite playlist going. I preferred a blend of genres and had stuff on here that even my parents had considered "old". A rock song from the late 2010s began to play. Satisfied, I left it on and must have been really into the music because I started nodding my head to the beat.

* * *

"Well, it's better than that geriatric crap you listen to!"

"It's _not_ crap and if you call it that again I'm going to kick your ass and tell all your friends you're a whiny baby who listens to dying whale noises!" I retorted.

"Rebecca! Don't threaten your brother!" Mom half-heartedly scolded me, not bothering to look up from her plate. She looked over at Dad. "This is really good, Robbie. New recipe?"

Dad flashed a proud smile. "Sure is! I got it from one of techs at the office."

I refused to go down without a fight. "Dennis started it, Mom. Also, his music really does sound like dying whales!"

"It really does, son," Dad said with mock seriousness. Dennis laughed. I rolled my eyes.

"Rebecca, eat your broccoli," Mom said before turning to Dad again. "Ted's assistant called today. I can never remember his name."

"Dunno. He changed them so often. What did he want this time?" Dad asked before taking a sip of his drink.

"You. I told him you were busy but that you'd call back. This is the third time he's called this week, Robbie. Just call the man back."

Dad sighed. "Fine."

"What on earth could he want anyway? It's been a few years." Mom said.

"Who knows? Maybe he just wants to catch up. I'll call him in the morning."

* * *

A hand touched my shoulder. "What are you doing?"

I jumped. " _Shit_!" My heart racing, I turned and saw Aloy kneeling next to me. The flames of the campfire danced in her eyes and her complexion wore a warm glow that emphasized her both perplexed and amused expression.

"Sorry. What are you doing?"

I paused the song. "Um…listening to music?"

Aloy looked around and then back at me, appearing more confused than ever. "Uh…no one here is playing music, Becks."

 _What?_ "I know no one is-oh…" I realized what she meant and laughed before pointing at my Focus. "I have songs stored on my Focus."

Aloy looked impressed. "You can do that? Save songs for later?"

"Yeah. You can put movies on here, too."

"What's a movie?"

 _Haha…oh yeah, I forgot._ "You know the holographic messages you've found? Like those, except they tell…stories and stuff. It's for entertainment," I explained.

Aloy nodded slowly. "Oh. Okay."

"I have a few on here I could share with you if…if you wanted."

The redhead gave a small smile. "I would like that. Also," she reached behind her and procured a spear, "this is for you."

I tentatively took the weapon into my hands. It was fairly heavy but lighter than the training spear Erend had me use. The shaft was the same branch that Aloy had been carving today. There was an array of metal pieces fastened to the end of it, the pieces sharp as knives. Other, more colorful metal pieces adorned the spear, as though to decorate it.

"I um…I figured it might help if you had one of your own," Aloy said, her words coming out so fast it was a little hard to understand her. "I know Erend was teaching you how to use one. I could, you know, pick up where he left off in your training."

I stared at my new weapon, admiring the weight of it, the sharpness of the blade at the end, and the overall shininess. _Cool…_

"Do you like it?" She seemed to be waiting in anticipation…or was it nervousness? _That's weird. Why would she be nervous? Maybe she just wants to make sure she's not sending me off to my death with this thing. Or maybe she just wants to make sure I don't think she's putting all the fighting responsibilities on me._

"Um…yeah! I love it. It's really great!" I said. She responded with a wide grin, beaming at me, and for whatever fucking reason, there was a weird fluttering going on in my stomach and my chest tightened.

 _Oh, wow._ Aloy was just trying to be nice. She wanted to make sure I had a way to defend myself so that it wasn't all on her. Made perfect sense.

"Here. I'm going to send you a song to play on your Focus," I said. With a few swipes, I browsed my library and decided on something slower and calming for her to listen to. Didn't want to introduce her with something too aggressive, or worse, something Dennis would have listened to.

 _Dennis…_

"There. Go ahead and play it," I told her. Aloy nodded and activated her Focus before playing the file, a slow guitar and strings song by a band from the early 21st century. As soon as the song started, she straightened up immediately, her eyes having gone wide with wonder.

"THIS IS INCREDIBLE!"

I cringed and then laughed really hard to the point where my side began to ache. Of course she wouldn't know to not talk over the Focus audio! When she looked slightly offended, I brought up the song on my own Focus and synced it with hers so that we could listen to it together.

We sat without saying anything for a while, just listening to the song. It had become a thing for us – these long bouts of silence with only the sounds of nature and the roars of machines from far away (and in this case, the music) keeping the world from getting too quiet. The lightning bugs floated in turn over the water, strangely enough almost to the beat of the music. I looked over at Aloy, who was looking out across the pond, seemingly absorbed in the music, the glow from the campfire a few steps away casting shadows on her face. It was mesmerizing. _She_ was mesmerizing.

As though my thoughts were as loud as shouts, Aloy turned her head slightly to glance at me. Gave me one of her signature crooked smiles.

 _Oh._

She figured out the volume setting on her Focus and lowered it slightly for the both of us. "I think I like this," she said, her voice nearly a whisper. "Thanks for showing me, Becks."

I didn't really know what to say. I mean, I _knew_ the appropriate thing to say such as "No problem" or "You're welcome", but the phrases decided not to show up in my vocabulary at that moment. My brilliant response instead was a lame, shy smile.

Those situations where things either happen so fast you can't react, or in such slow motion that you still can't react? That was what pretty much happened as Aloy met my eyes before she leaned in and kissed me with such softness and hesitation that I nearly melted. The warmth of her mouth contrasted sharply with the chilly night air as I marveled at the feeling of her lips on mine and began to reciprocate the kiss.

I had never kissed anyone before. Back in school, I spent most of my time focused on my studies or on track and never really had time for dating or relationships. I didn't know if Aloy had any experience with this either. It didn't really seem like something I should ask her at that moment.

The music faded but we continued. Aloy reached up and placed her hand on my cheek. I barely had time to register its roughness (no doubt the result of wielding a spear and kicking the shit out of crazy people and machines) before she leaned into the kiss, deepening it as she gently began to part my lips with her tongue. My mind was cloudy as I allowed her entry and my thoughts heavy as the world began to spin. The nervousness that had tangled in my chest dissolved in a wave of warmth and I felt like an idiot for putting this off for so long. I could have told _her_ so long ago and-

 _Jenna._

I froze. Tears sprung to my eyes.

 _Fuck._

Aloy must have noticed that I had stopped and quickly pulled away. She took one look at me and must have realized what I was thinking. What I was feeling. "Becks, I'm sorry. I-,"

I held my hand up. "No, I-sorry. _I'm_ sorry, Aloy. I just…I should get some sleep." My head hurt. This was all such a clusterfuck. I missed my parents. I missed my brother. I missed Jenna. I wanted to go _home._

I pulled myself up and, with tears streaming down my face, practically ran to my bed, leaving Aloy alone by the water and the spear she had gifted me on the ground, forgotten.


	9. Confidante

Aloy and I didn't speak to each other for the remainder of that night…or the next night for that matter. In fact, for the remainder of our trip to Meridian I kept to myself, not even talking to HEPHAESTUS and only speaking to the redhead in awkward, monosyllabic responses to questions like "Are you hungry" and "Do you want to stop to rest?". As for Aloy, after I had gone to bed that night, she had grabbed the spear she had gifted to me and set it next to me without a word. She proceeded to maintain a noticeable distance from me, but I had been around her long enough to see through the wall she put up to hide her emotions.

I could tell she was hurt. That _I_ had hurt her.

The warm days crossing the desert dragged as we made our way to the Sun Carja capital. Normally I would have entertained myself by talking to Aloy or our new AI companion, who seemed perfectly content waddling alongside us on the barren road to Meridian. But after what happened that fateful night by the pond, I couldn't bring myself to say much of anything, let alone hold a conversation.

 _She kissed me. Like,_ really _kissed me._

And I had kissed her back.

I didn't know what to think honestly. Having absolutely no experience with any of this shit, I didn't know if she was my type or not (obviously I didn't fucking have a type) but I knew I was attracted to her.

 _Who wouldn't be?_ The memory of my conversation with Erend just a day after I had met Aloy surfaced. He had admitted that she wasn't interested in him romantically but even to my inexperienced eyes I could tell that at one point he had probably developed a small crush on her.

 _She's smart, brave, funny, can jump off cliffs without dying, has amazing eyes-_

Clearly I had, too.

I shook myself from my thoughts. _No._ Whatever it was I felt for Aloy, the fact remained that I wasn't ready to jump into anything with _anyone_ yet…if I ever did. As bleak as that sounded, it was a reality I would rather accept than risking the friendship of the only person I had in this world.

She hadn't tried to talk to me about it. I think she knew that I was still mourning well, everything. I was frustrated at myself. Things had been getting more bearable. I had been able to hold conversations without tearing up or choking on my words every time I referenced home when around Aloy. I had grown comfortable around her, trusted her – even with my life at times.

It had been like something from a movie – the fireflies, the music, the glow from the campfire – and the kiss had been no less than fucking magical. But the pain of knowing what I might have missed with Jenna had cut through my heart and it was all too much to handle. I was a thousand years from everyone I loved and I wasn't ready to let them go.

* * *

"Aloy! Becks! You're her-ack, move aside, you idiots!" I grinned as we stood at the gates of the great city of Meridian and watched Erend push through the crowd of people to get to us.

The City of the Sun was fucking ridiculous in how beautiful it was. It stood on the top of a mesa, overlooking what appeared to be a jungle to the south and the farmlands in the villages beneath it, accessible by the elevators that had been constructed on the sides of the mesa. The people there had built upwards – multi story buildings were everywhere and the city was designed so intricately that it was almost like it had been planned from the start, something that I thought I had seen the last of in my time. That the people of this world could construct something so amazing (and use so much fucking bronze) made me feel not so shitty about our generation (well, Ted Faro) destroying all knowledge of our civilization leaving these people to start over. From our position, we could see the towering spire – MINERVA, the signal tower that broadcasted the instructions to shut down the Faro robots and later, stop HADES.

With the sun setting, I could see construction crews working on a bridge in the distance, rebuilding it after it had been blown to bits when the Eclipse had attacked the city. _So, this is where that huge battle happened_. Where Earth almost fell again. And these people had given everything to save it.

 _Aloy had saved it._

"Good to…good to see you two," Erend said, panting once he had gotten to us. "The sentries saw you from the towers. The king's requested an audience with you," he said, looking at Aloy.

The redhead looked a little annoyed. "That was fast. We just got here." _She's annoyed that a_ king _wants to talk to her? Weird…_

Erend rubbed the back of his neck. "Er…yeah, sorry. It's just been a while and all-,"

"I know," Aloy said. "It's fine. It's just been a long day. Actually," she continued with a small laugh, "it's been a little strange the last few days."

Erend began leading us through the city streets. He and Aloy talked while I gaped at the craftsmanship of the architecture, the chaos of the marketplace, and took in the odd combination of scents of various spices and dishes as peddlers and merchants of all kinds tried to beckon us to their carts. It was pretty overwhelming for someone like me who wasn't really used to big cities – I had spent most of my life in a nice, quiet suburb so even something like this made me feel out of place. With Erend and Aloy talking and unable to hear my own thoughts what with all the noise, I suddenly wished that I had volunteered to stay outside the city with HEPHAESTUS, who we had to spend a fucking _hour_ convincing it to stay behind so that it didn't, you know, scare the living shit out of the locals here.

At some point, we arrived at a spot where the street continued onto a bridge that led up to a massive structure that I assumed could only be the palace. Aloy turned to me.

"I have to take care of something, Becks. It shouldn't take too long." Her words were toneless but I could still see the hurt in her hazel eyes.

"Oh." It felt weird, speaking to her again. "What-what should I do?"

"I'll take her to Olin's old place. Avad's had it reserved for guests and prepped it for you when they saw you coming," Erend said.

Aloy nodded. "Okay. Thanks." She turned back to me. "I'll be back later."

"Yeah. Okay," I mumbled, scolding myself internally. _Nice going. You want to alienate anyone else here while you're at it?_

"Follow me, then!" Erend boomed and led me back into the busy marketplace. I looked over my shoulder for a moment to watch Aloy walk away, only to see her look back at me, too. Our gazes met for a moment but the connection was quickly broken when she turned back to head toward the palace of the Sun King.

* * *

"So! You two made a friend!"

I looked up from my ultra-concentrated effort to trace out the wood grain of the floors with my sight while sitting on the bed. Aloy had explained who "Olin" was - how he had betrayed the Nora and led the Eclipse straight to her, resulting in the death of countless innocents, Aloy's guardian, Rost, and nearly Aloy herself. He sounded like a scumbag and I wasn't quite sure why Aloy had given him a second chance. His sorry ass was back in the Claim now, where the Oseram were from, with his wife and son. I had taken a quick tour of his house upon Erend's and my arrival. It was nice – really cozy and comfortable, with special attention given to all the furnishings to ensure they were as detailed as every other piece of carving in the city.

"Uh…what?" I said, giving Erend a blank, apologetic look.

The Vanguard captain chuckled. "The Watcher. Aloy told me about what you found in that cauldron place." He reached behind him at the table where he sat opposite of me and procured a large bottle with which he used to fill up two metal tankards. "Here."

I shook my head. "I don't really drink," I admitted.

Erend rolled his eyes. "Come _on_. Look, Becks, I don't know what the hell happened with you two but it's obvious you're not on speaking terms." Then, in a mutter, "She only gets like this when she's really upset about something. So," he continued, his voice adjusting to normal volume (which was just short of shouting for everyone else), "have a drink on me and get it out of your system." He took a long sip from his mug.

I was curious now. "You know when she's upset?"

Erend laughed. "Well, yeah! We've known each other a while now. She told me all about that GAIA thing and what happened with the uh…the people in your time. When she came back to Meridian and told me she wanted to try and put it all back together, I offered to go with her."

I couldn't hold back a smile. "That's really good of you to do. You're a good friend."

He shrugged. "Eh. I just don't like seeing her mope around all broody, like it's the end of the world…again."

The pang of guilt that hit me must have been obvious to the Oseram man, because he held the second tankard out to me again. "Here. Aloy'll probably be a while, honestly. The king…he likes to chat with her. Thinks she's a good conversationalist or something." Another sip.

I smirked and relented, taking the mug from him before having a tentative sip. It was some kind of beer, or at least, I think it was. Whatever it was, it was foul.

"Good, huh?"

"Uh…sure."

Erend snorted. "You hate it."

"It's disgusting."

"Hah!" he barked and slapped his knee. "So, come on! What happened?"

"It's nothing, Erend. Really." I understood that he cared about his friend, but I wasn't really in the mood to talk about what happened. Plus, it wasn't any of his business really.

"Oh, no you don't!" he said, not accepting my evasion. He leaned back in his chair. "Come on, how bad could it be?" He took another sip.

 _Ugh, seriously?_ "She kissed me. I freaked out. We're not really speaking now," I said in a huff as I tried another sip of the beer. _Still gross._ I set the mug down on the nightstand next to the bed.

Erend nearly sprayed his drink everywhere and coughed for a good thirty seconds before bursting into laughter. "S-she _what?_ Aw…that's-that's something! Wait…seriously?" He stopped laughing when I just stared at him.

"Yeah."

Eyebrows raised, Erend leaned back again in his seat. "Wow. And you-I mean I had a feeling when she kept fawning over you like you were going to break at a moment's notice but…wow. Way to go, Aloy!" He seemed to suddenly realize I was sitting right in front of him. "I mean, uh…why'd you freak out?"

 _Well, this is awkward._ "Erend…" I didn't know how to explain this. I guess the truth was a good start as long as we were here. "I just…it's been a really weird time for me since I-since you found me. I like Aloy - I like her _a lot_ – but I just…I don't know if I'm ready for something like that right now. Also," I directed my gaze to the floor again, "I'm a little scared."

"Of what?" To my surprise, Erend wasn't laughing anymore. He wasn't even smiling. He was just waiting patiently for me to answer, something I honestly didn't expect coming from him.

I wanted to cry again, but I somehow managed to push back the tears that fought to come up. "I don't have much here. My family and…everyone I know is gone. I don't want to fuck up the friendships I _do_ have by getting into…something else and then blowing that because I wasn't…ready." I sighed. _The fuck am I doing?_ "I know you and Aloy are friends but…I'd appreciate if you didn't mention any of this to her."

Erend gave a sympathetic smile. "You're good, Becks. I get it." He gestured to the bottle on the table. "Now, we gotta finish this before Aloy gets back."

I grinned. It felt nice getting that off my chest and not feeling judged for it, even if Aloy was his friend. "It's all yours, Erend."

He gave another hearty laugh. "I gotta start hanging out with people my own age. You people from the Metal World make for terrible drinking partners."


	10. ARTEMIS

"This is it then? Are you sure?"

 _"SYSTEM CONFIRMS ARRIVAL AT COORDINATES FOR SUBSYSTEM ARTEMIS."_

I looked around before exchanging confused glances with Erend and Aloy. The Oseram man crossed his arms. "I don't see anything," he said to the Watcher. Then to Aloy, "I think your machine is broken."

The blue light on the Watcher's face blinked quickly several times. _"SYSTEM IS OPERATING AT IDEAL CAPACITY. SYSTEM DETECTS OBVIOUS BUT EXPECTED MISCALCULATION."_

I had to stifle a giggle. "I think Heph just called you stupid, Erend."

Erend rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, you can tell it I think it's a liability. Besides," he said, gesturing to the jungle around us, "there's nothing here!"

I heard Aloy sigh and watched her put her hands on her hips before directing her gaze to the sky. Beads of sweat, no doubt a result of the _very_ humid climate, ran down her face in rivulets. As for me, I felt fucking gross. It was ridiculously hot and the humidity of this weird, rainforest region south of Meridian made it a hundred times worse. The air was heavy and carried the scent of impending rain. How the hell a rainforest managed to grow here was beyond me, but I guess anything could happen in this new biosphere.

"Where is it, HEPHAESTUS?" the redhead asked the machine. "We're at the right coordinates but I don't see anything that resembles the place where we found you."

 _"SYSTEM UNABLE TO DETERMINE EXACT STRUCTURAL LOCATION."_

"Well, that's fucking helpful," I grumbled. Erend chuckled while Aloy glanced over at me. She seemed to want to say something to me, but apparently decided against it because she just looked over at Heph and said, "That's okay. Maybe it's somewhere close to here, then."

 _Fine, don't talk to me, then. See if I care._ Aloy had gone back to barely speaking to me like she had in the weeks before the Proving festival in Mother's Heart. When she had returned from speaking to Sun King Avad a few nights earlier she had been rather broody and sullen, and had said very little to either myself or Erend, going straight to bed instead after stating she was tired. I didn't know what her deal was and I didn't ask.

 _Ugh. This weather is making me pissy._ Truthfully, I had been in a foul mood for a while now. I didn't have any specific reasons other than being frustrated with my situation in general. Other than just making some adjustments to the interfacing program I wrote and trying to come up with a clever story to tell people so that they wouldn't freak out about where I was from (for now, I was an outlander that had lived in Nora lands before joining up with Aloy and Erend), I didn't have much else to do and was getting _really_ bored. Aloy had been either cold and distant or awkward and overly nice around me. Erend made an effort to talk to me but I could tell he felt like a third wheel in a bad relationship around us. A woman named Talanah had stopped by the house looking for Aloy one day when the redhead had gone to the marketplace to stock up on supplies for our trip to find ARTEMIS. She seemed nice at first and mentioned something about a hunter's lodge and a giant machine called a Thunderjaw and from what I could gather through a lot of unnecessary titles, Aloy was her…apprentice or something? I don't even know, but the way Talanah's face would soften every time she mentioned Aloy in her story bothered me. It was obvious that a lot of people here admired Aloy and deeply respected her. _Or maybe they just wanted to get her in bed. Who knows?_

It was crass and probably pretty rude to think of Aloy's friends like that but there was something about the way people fawned over her that bugged me. Like, they just saw her as some symbol or prophet or problem-solver and not as an actual person. And she just ignored it instead of telling them to fuck off. I don't know why it bothered me so much or why I even cared, but I did.

"We've been walking for _hours_ ," Erend whined. "Wouldn't we – I don't know, have seen something big enough to make all those animals in plain sight?"

I let out a frustrated groan and sat down on the ground, which, for being a rainforest where lots of things grew, was not very comfortable at all. "Hope we didn't come all the way out here for nothing."

 _"SYSTEM DETECTS HIGH LEVELS OF STRESS."_

"No, you _think_?" I said with a scowl. HEPHAESTUS gave a few quiet clicks and I saw its light dim. Erend focused hard on the ground and Aloy frowned but remained silent. Guilt set in. "I'm sorry, Heph," I sighed. "You're right – I _am_ stressed."

"I think we all are," Aloy added and gave me a reaffirming nod. Scolding the poor machine made me realize I was acting like a petulant child and so I offered Aloy a small smile, just enough to let her know I was all right and somewhat remorseful for my shitty mood. She didn't smile back, her lips holding firm in a straight line.

 _"ACKNOWLEDGED."_ Heph's light returned to its usual high-beam blue.

I grinned and reached out to pet the Watcher's head. After the first two pats, the machine let out a high-pitched squeal and jumped backwards, startling everyone and emitting a metal on metal clank beneath its feet.

 _"THIS UNIT IS NOT INTENDED FOR-,"_

"Yeah, yeah, we know," I said, waving it away as I climbed to my feet. "Honestly, you're the crappiest dog ever."

Erend just looked confused. "What's a 'dog'?"

Aloy had walked over to HEPHAESTUS to check out what the AI had landed on. After a brief inspection, she called out to us. "Look! Here, there's…the ground is metal right here." She looked up and ahead and was quiet for a moment, as though deep in thought while Erend and I waited eagerly for her to speak up again.

Finally, a broad smile spread on her face and she glanced back at us. "It's…it's here! There's a bunker underneath us. It looks like it starts here and then goes on for a while that way!" She pointed directly ahead of her, toward the deeper part of the forest.

"Great!" Erend grinned. "So…how do we get in?"

"There's probably a door somewhere," I said, noting the drops of water that were beginning to fall from the cloudy sky.

"Like this one?" Erend asked, using his armored boot to point at decent sized spot on the ground.

"What?" Confused, I walked over to him and Aloy followed. On the ground next to Erend was a rusted metal surface that, to the untrained eye, looked like dirt-covered rocks. But upon a closer look, I could see the grooves around it, betraying the hatch's identity.

"How the hell did you see that?" I asked.

Erend puffed up with pride. "Oseram are trained from birth to recognize complex doors and locks."

"Lucky for us, then," Aloy said as she beamed at her friend.

* * *

"Accessing."

"It's uh…been saying that for a while," Erend observed.

"It's definitely taking longer this time," Aloy agreed.

"Yeah, I'm aware, guys. Sorry, it's only the second time I've ever interfaced with an AI more freaking complex than anything I've ever seen in my life," I said, hoping that they'd get the sarcasm and let me do my damn job.

"Sorry," Aloy mumbled.

That guilt again. _I_ _can't fucking win today._

Erend looked around the room nervously. "Do uh…we gotta worry about any machines attacking us here?"

Aloy's voice and genetic imprint had allowed us to get through ARTEMIS' security with ease. The bunker was indescribably huge. It had taken us at least an hour to walk through the main corridor in which the walls were made up entirely of shelving to store the cryogenically frozen genetic information of all the animals the Zero Dawn team had managed to preserve. Aloy theorized that there were probably several of these bunkers around the world and explained that it was the role of the APOLLO system to educate her civilization to introduce new animals into the ecosystem as they saw fit. Obviously, that hadn't happened, which was why there were nothing but fucking turkeys everywhere (not entirely true, but close enough).

According to HEPHAESTUS, the subcore was at the center of the bunker, at the end of the corridor. The Watcher had been able to assist me in finding a console that I could run my interfacing program on but couldn't really help past that until I established a connection with ARTEMIS. So, basically, we had no clue what to expect.

"We're good," I said, still waiting impatiently for the interface to complete. The three, well, four of us stood in an awkward silence in the dim green and yellow lit control room.

"Connection established. Identification: please state name and rank."

I sighed with relief as Aloy gave the credentials to the interface. _Here we go again._


	11. Panic Mode

"Error: interface incompatibility detected."

 _Shit. Nice going, rookie._

"What? What's that mean?" Erend asked.

I sighed, frustrated. "It means that my program won't work on ARTEMIS." I looked at Aloy. "I wrote it based on the output you got from the cauldrons. Apparently, it's not universal among all the subsystems."

Aloy bit her lip. I could tell she was disappointed. Not sure if it was at me or just at the situation. I cringed inwardly. Regardless of what had transpired between us and the awkward state of our friendship, I didn't want to let her down. Maybe it was because if we failed at this then I was somehow failing…who? Myself? My family? The Alphas that had died trying to make sure that the world would be a viable place to live for future humanity? I honestly didn't know anymore, but I knew one thing. We couldn't fail.

 _I_ couldn't fail.

"There _has_ to be a way," she said, her tone hard with determination.

Thunder rumbled above us, sending a dark echo throughout the bunker. The pounding of heavy rain on the roof started shortly after.

Erend glanced upwards. "Well, _that_ won't be fun to walk home in."

Aloy ignored him. "What else can we do, Becks? I know you can figure this out." She gave me a pleading look; her voice having gone much softer. It was the first time in days she had spoken genuinely to me and I couldn't help but be somewhat grateful that I had the old Aloy back, not the austere, stoic one that I had been dealing with since we kissed.

I knew I had to try _something_. "Um…I'm not sure. I'm sorry – this tech is _really_ complex and I'm still figuring it all out. Maybe if there was some other way we could directly interface with it that wasn't voice-based." _Oooh._ The light went on.

I turned to the Watcher behind us. "Heph, you think you could give it a shot? We don't speak ARTEMIS' language but _you_ might, right?"

HEPHAESTUS let out a series of rolling clicks. _"SYSTEM WILL ATTEMPT TO INTERFACE WITH SUBSYSTEM ARTEMIS ON ALPHA PRIME'S COMMAND."_

Aloy's hazel eyes lit up for the first time in days. "Yes, try it!" she ordered before looking back at me, a grin slowly forming on her face.

 _"ACKNOWLEDGED. PROCEEDING."_ Heph hopped over to the console and stared at it for a moment before its light turned from blue to orange.

"I hope this works," Aloy whispered. She seemed nervous and I understood. If we couldn't interface with any of the other systems, then GAIA couldn't be restored and this would all be for nothing.

It wasn't these people's fault that the planet was fucked up and had to be rebuilt. It also wasn't fair that Aloy had to be the one responsible for making sure this all worked. I realized at that moment that I wasn't being a very good friend, despite my offer to help. Romantic feelings or not, the very least I could do was show her the same kindness she had shown me since I woke up.

I nodded and took her hand in mine. The roughness of it reminded me of her strength and resilience. But even walls need support. "Me, too. And if it doesn't, we'll figure out another way."

Aloy's eyebrows raised in surprise at me. She gave my hand a light squeeze. I decided I would talk to her later when we were back in Meridian.

Another clap of thunder shook the room.

 _"ALPHA PRIME. INTERFACE WITH ARTEMIS HAS COMPLETED. SUBCORE WILL EJECT FROM ADJACENT CONSOLE."_

"You got it!?" I was thrilled and from the combination of shock and relief on Aloy's face, it was clear she was, too.

 _"CORRECT. ALERT – EXTERNAL WEATHER CONDITIONS HAVE REDUCED VISIBILITY AND TRACTION."_

"Hah! It tells you the weather, too. This thing's more useful than most _people_ I've met," Erend said, making the rest of us laugh nervously while the Watcher clicked at us disapprovingly.

The console to the right of the one Heph had interfaced with sat on a wide metal cylinder that came up to my waist. It emitted a loud bang before the top of it slid open with a hiss, letting out thick clouds of dust and steam. We waited a few seconds for the clouds to dissipate.

The subcore rested on a small platform inside the console.

Aloy grinned at me. "Another one down. We did it!"

" _That's_ what we were here for? A little chunk of metal?" Erend said, scratching his head.

I carefully picked up the subcore and handed it to Aloy, who put it in her pack with the other one. "This chunk of metal is what's going to allow us to reboot GAIA." We began walking back to the entrance of the bunker.

"And we gotta do that with _all_ of these things? How many are there?" he asked. Thunder sounded again, this time much louder and closer than before. Aloy reached out to the door console to open it. The doors slid open with a screech, revealing the stormy weather outside that we would now have to walk in all the way back to the city.

 _A_ t _least we don't have to deal with the fucking heat anymore._ "Well, let's see. We've got two down and-," I started to answer but was shoved aside suddenly by Aloy, who screamed, " _Get down!"_

A flaming arrow narrowly missed Erend and ricocheted off the rusted doorway.

Chaos took over. Through the cascade of rain, I could see a group of Eclipse outside the bunker, no doubt where they had been waiting for a while. They knew where we were. We had been followed somehow. _But how?_

"We're being tracked!" Aloy yelled as the three of us took cover in the doorway, arrows hailing around us.

"How the fuck are they doing that?" I winced as an arrow just narrowly missed my leg.

"I don't know! The only time that's happened is-," Aloy's eyes went wide with realization. "Oh, _no._ " She readied her bow and nocked a few arrows in it. Erend had his hammer in both hands.

"Time to smash some faces in!" he announced.

Aloy shook her head. "No, Erend. You need to get Becks out of here. _Now!"_

The Vanguard captain immediately began to protest. "What? No, you can't take all these guys alone!"

I reached for my new spear, the one Aloy had made for me, and gripped it nervously. I didn't want fight. These guys could shoot _flaming fucking arrows_ from a distance and I could barely hold my own in a training spar.

 _"SYSTEM DETECTS ALTERNATE UNIT FOR DEFENSE,"_ HEPHAESTUS stated, its tone no more alarmed than it had been seconds ago before the attack. The light on the Watcher went dark and the machine collapsed on the metal floor.

"Are you _kidding_ me? You're taking a nap _now?_ " Another arrow. Then three more – all close enough to make Aloy wince, which was not good. Panic was quickly taking over and it took every bit of focus to not hyperventilate and start crying for my mom.

"Ugh! I need an opening," Aloy groaned. "As soon as I go, Erend, you and Becks run for it. Got it?"

But Erend shook his head. "I already told you, I'm _not_ leaving you, Aloy!"

"Argh! Don't question me, just do it!" she snapped.

Another hail of arrows.

"We're pinned down here!" Erend yelled, gritting his teeth with every impact the arrows made on the ground.

Aloy inhaled sharply. "I'm going to have to make an opening then."

I realized what she was implying and grabbed her arm. "They're everywhere and will shoot the shit out of you if you go out there now!"

Before she could argue with me, the cluster of trees closest to us were knocked down with such violence and force that the ground beneath us shook. A Ravager leapt from the kicked-up dust and debris and landed on the dirt hard before letting out a booming, metallic roar. It took one look at the stunned Eclipse fighters and attacked, using its teeth and claws to rend the fighters to bloody pieces. The panicked Eclipse turned their attention to the beast, giving Aloy the time she had been asking for.

"Now, Erend! Go! _Go!_ "

"But-," I started. This was crazy. We needed Aloy. Without her we couldn't complete the mission.

 _We need…no,_ I _need her._ Mission or not, kiss or no kiss, friends or otherwise – I couldn't lose her. Not now.

Aloy matched my gaze and gave me her signature (and now beginning to be a source of frustration and excitement all at the same time) smirk. "I'll be fine, Becks. This is nothing."

I hesitated. Erend took my arm and began to pull me away.

"We gotta go, Becks!" he urged. I took one last look at the redhead, who had taken her opportunity and run out into the clearing beyond the bunker to unleash her arrows on the distracted fighters. Erend and I began running through the forest with him ahead of me, hammer in hand, and me barely clutching onto his arm as we trudged through the mud and rain-soaked ground cover as fast as we could.

 _Aloy._

"Keep running! Pick up your feet – come _on!"_

I wanted to go back. Something didn't feel right. The Eclipse had wanted me alive. Somehow, they had tracked us not just to Heph's cauldron, but to ARTEMIS as well.

 _"The only time that happened is-,"_

"BECKS!"

Impact. I slammed into something solid, causing me to bite own lip so hard I tasted blood. My vision immediately blurred as I hit the ground hard. Coughing and sputtering, I struggled to regain my bearings so that I could get up but a lancing pain in my ribs knocking me flat on my back. I tried to cry out for Erend or Aloy but I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to form the words. Thought my vision was blurred still from the impact and the rain, I could hear someone screaming my name over the thunder in the distance, and then two dark figures looming over me.

"You fucking idiot, why did you do that? That's her!" one figure, a female, said. I couldn't place the voice – it was low and rough but the inflection was familiar, almost from a memory. Everything around me was blurred and muffled anyway though, so it was impossible to know.

"She's not dead. Stop complaining so much. I don't know why you were allowed to come in the first place," the second figure, a male, retorted.

The female sighed. "Enough. Leave the other one. Let's go before the redhead sees us."

"She's going come to her senses eventually," the man said.

"Leave that to me." I watched through pained vision as the woman knelt down next to me. "Sorry about this."

A cloth was roughly placed over my nose and mouth and held tightly against my face. I immediately went into panic mode and tried with all my strength to free myself of the firm grip against me when I blacked out.

* * *

"Oh, Becks, hey. You're home. How was class?" Dad was in the kitchen when I walked in the door. I had done my usual route – drop my bag off in the foyer to return for it later and head for the kitchen where there was food. He was never home this early in the afternoon, though.

"Hi…Dad?"

He must have seen the confusion on my face because he chuckled. "Wow, that's some "hello" you've been practicing there. Way to greet your old man. Really makes me feel welcome in my own home." He pretended to sob. "It's fine. I shouldn't be upset that my only daughter doesn't want to say 'hi' to me."

 _Oh, for fuck's sake._ I rolled my eyes obvious enough for him to see. "Sorry. _Hi, Dad!_ " I exaggerated and gave him a hug. He laughed and squeezed me tightly, more so than usual, and held on for much longer.

"Uh…everything okay, Dad? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but how come you're home so early?" I said when he finally let me go.

Dad smiled, his blue eyes twinkling under the LED lights. Mom always said that Dad and I had the same smile, especially when we were hiding something. It was impossible to keep anything from her. She even knew about my feelings for Jenna and had not pushed me in any direction other than just telling me that I would know what to do when the time was right.

"All right, Dad, what's up? What did you do?" I grinned. "And does Mom know?"

It was a line I said often to him and usually ended with him telling me he had bought Mom a trip somewhere or had managed to get Dennis a new video game before it had been publicly released. Dad really liked surprising us with stuff like that. I think he hoped it would make up a little for all the times he had to be gone on business trips.

"No, nothing like that, Becks. And yes, of course your mother knows but…there's um…there's something I need to talk to you about." His smile had vanished and for the first time I could remember, he looked _old._ Like he hadn't slept in days. Something was obviously weighing on him.

"Yeah," I said, taking a more serious tone. "What did you want to talk about?"

A shadow hung in the air between us. Something was wrong. That much I could tell.

"Is…did something happen? Are Mom and Dennis okay?" I asked, getting more worried with each passing moment.

Dad nodded. "Yes, they're fine. Did you want to sit down in the living room? Maybe we could-,"

"Dad, just tell me already!"

Dad's eyebrows arched up in…sadness? _What the hell?_ "Sweetheart…Rebecca, um…you know about the Chariot line that…that the company sells, right?"

I leaned back against the quartz countertops. "Yeah, what about them?"

Dad took a deep breath, but his voice came out in a shaky whisper. "There's been a glitch-,"

* * *

I opened my eyes slowly. White-hot pain burned in my side and chest. An intense pressure in my head made any kind of light or sound agony to experience. It helped a bit that the pillow my head rested on was soft and-

 _The fuck?_

I sat up and gasped, holding my side as the pain shot through my entire body. _Okay…note to self: don't ever fucking move again._ The room was small, smaller than my bedroom at home for sure. The walls were painted a bright white and the room was warmly lit with designer lamps on the nightstands and dressers around the room. The bed I was in resembled the one I had back in my bedroom very much. The sheets were clean and the comforter smelled freshly laundered. There were no windows but the room was…comforting.

With the exception of the giant fucking glass wall that looked out to a long corridor. _Where am I?_ Was this a hospital or something? _Why would there be a hospital here anyway?_

Everything that had happened prior rushed back to me. Meridian, ARTEMIS, the subcore, the Eclipse, HEPHAESTUS taking control of a fucking Ravager to save us, Erend and I running through the forest…

 _Aloy._

I had to find her. I had to leave whatever this place was and find her. I attempted to push myself out of the bed. My injuries would not allow me to move without excruciating pain, however, leaving me a whimpering mess on the bed.

I rolled over to face away from the glass wall. I wanted to cry. I had been awake for less than ten minutes and I was already terrified. The only person in this world I trusted was missing and I had no idea where I was.

"Hey, you okay?" A young woman's voice. She sounded a bit like the woman in the forest. I could feel the end of the bed depressing as she sat down. "You've been in and out of it for a few days. I'm sorry about your side. You've got a couple bruised ribs." A hand stroked my hair. I slapped it.

"Get away from me."

The woman giggled. "Becks, seriously? A thousand years later, and that's how you say 'hello'?"

 _No._

I slowly rolled over, trying my hardest to ignore the aching in my ribs. I was thankful I was already in bed because I nearly passed out again. Short, straight blonde hair, though she had always kept it long. Her skin, once fair and delicate, was pale and covered in dirt, scratches, and scars. She seemed…older. We were the same age, but something about her face told me that it… _something_ had changed. Her eyes were the same as they had always been – a vibrant bluish green that always caught the stares of every person in the room in every class we had together.

 _How?_

"Surprised to see me?" she asked.

I had no words except her name. "Jenna?"


	12. Ghost

"Well, at least you remember my name. That's a start."

"Jenna," I said again. I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't dreaming – that this was _real._ That she was actually there. Breathing. Alive. _But that doesn't make any sense – she was going to go with her parents and…_

It was a lot to process. I had been grieving, mourning her…perhaps more so than anyone else I'd lost. But here she was, right in front me. I could tell her everything that happened. About GAIA, the machines, Heph, Meridian, and-

 _Aloy._ She had left us and gone to fight those Eclipse. She'd been on her own, well, I mean HEPHAESTUS was there also, but she'd sent Erend and me to run back to Meridian while she distracted them. They had been looking for _me._

 _They were looking for me._

"Becks?"

 _Jenna._

"Becks, you all right?"

I painfully pushed myself so that I was sitting up on the bed. Jenna reached out and helped support me as I sat up. Her touch, her smell, _everything_ about her was familiar and comforting. It was all so surreal. "You really should take it easy," she said.

I shook my head. "Jenna…what are you _doing_ here? How-you were…I thought-,"

She gave a soft, quiet laugh. "I know. It's still a little weird for me, too. But," she continued when she saw my baffled expression, "don't worry. I'll explain everything and then I think you should meet someone."

Meet someone? Who the fuck else did I know here? And where were Aloy and Erend?

"Where are my friends?"

Jenna cast me a dubious look. "After all this you want to know where those people that _kidnapped_ you are?"

I did a double take. "The fuck? Kidnapped me? They're my friends, Jenna. They saved me from…from the cryo tank." I narrowed my eyes at her. "And _you_ still haven't fucking told me how _you're_ still alive."

She frowned. "Sorry. Just…you weren't supposed to be there."

"What does that even mean?" I sighed. I didn't want to argue with her but I was tired, scared, and everything _hurt_. "Can you just please tell me what's going on?"

Jenna was quiet for a moment. She took my hand in hers. "My parents lied to me, Becks. They arranged for me to be airlifted from my house after our call dropped. These guys took me to this other place, a sealed facility. They didn't tell me much, only that I was going to go into cryostasis." She looked down. "I wasn't really given a choice."

 _Holy shit._ "Jenna…I'm so sorry," I murmured, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "But when did you-,"

"My cryo tank opened on its own ten years ago, Becks. Ten _years._ "

 _What?_ My eyes went wide with shock. I couldn't help but study her again. The black clothes - accented with a dark red embroidery - she wore combined the styles of the Carja and maybe a bit of the Oseram – it was difficult to tell as I wasn't much of an expert on the clothing styles of this world. Her chest, back, and shoulders were armored with remnants of GAIA machines and metal chains, leaving her midriff and arms exposed. She'd always been pretty thin but there was obvious muscle definition on her stomach and arms now. No wonder she looked different. Ten years? Where had she been? And why was she hanging out with insane cultists? There _was_ something else about her, though. Something…sad. Harrowing.

"You've been all alone here for _ten years_?" I still couldn't believe it. "But…the Eclipse. They tried to end the world, Jenna. Why are you with them?"

She laughed, this time with such harshness that had I not been sitting in front of her I wouldn't have believed it came from her. "Wow, judgmental much, Becks?"

I matched her icy gaze with one of my own. _This isn't right._ Jenna had always been a lot more adventurous than me, taking crazy risks, getting in trouble with authority from time to time sure, but this was just…wrong. "They're insane, Jenna."

"They're _puppets._ And I only just started dealing with them recently. They were a bunch of losers when we found them." She shrugged. "I've done what I had to do to survive, Becks. I thought you would have understood that."

"I do!" I exclaimed, letting go of her hand. This was pissing me off now. "I do, Jenna, I mean, I'm trying to. But you fucking kidnapped me, got me hurt, and now you're trying to tell me that _I'm_ being judgmental because you've teamed up with a bunch of murderers?" I'd argued with Jenna countless times over the course of our friendship. But we'd made up every time and it was almost always over something stupid. I didn't know what this shit was though. The Jenna _I_ knew wouldn't have even thought about going near some shitheads like the Eclipse.

"Where are my friends?" I asked again.

Jenna sighed. "They're both fine. I had the attack called off once we had you." She paused. "They won't find you here, Becks. We're in an underground bunker near the old FAS building." Her voice became softer. "I'm sorry about your parents and Dennis."

 _Old FAS building?_ "I…yeah. How'd you know?"

She smiled grimly and pointed to her Focus. "It showed you as online about two months ago. We tracked the signal to your house but when we got there you were gone and we couldn't find the signal and…your family's still there, Becks. I mean, they're not-,"

"I get it," I said, struggling to control my voice and not start crying in front of her. "Wait…who is 'we'? Who else is here?"

"You'll meet him soon. He found me about a year ago. I had been living in Brightmarket for a bit before that. After my…I woke up, Becks, and there was no one there." Jenna closed her eyes and breathed deeply before opening them again. "I wandered around, fucking lost out of my mind. No one believed me when I told them where I was from. I went everywhere. Stayed in some places longer than others." She met my eyes again. "I honestly didn't think I'd ever see you again, Becks." She lightly touched my arm. "It's a little weird, isn't it? I'm older than you now." The somber expression was replaced by a devilish smirk. "Guess that means I still own your ass, shrimp."

 _There she is._ "You wish. And technically, you were always older than me. Also," I gestured to her clothes. "Nice outfit. You look like you're about to go into battle."

Jenna flashed me her best mysterious smile. "Maybe I am." She shrugged again. "It's comfortable and keeps me alive."

I pointed to her exposed midriff. "I'm calling bullshit because of _this_."

She snorted. "I think it's pretty. It also gets fucking hot near Meridian so don't even start. Though it does get pretty cold out here. And just what the hell are _you_ wearing? You look like you joined the goddamn tribe."

As harmless as her tease was, I couldn't help but feel defensive and self-conscious. Aloy had gotten me the clothes. It was one of the several things she did to help me adjust after I had arrived.

My feelings must have been obvious because Jenna tilted her head down to get me to look at her. "Hey, I didn't mean it in a bad way. Did you um…somehow join the Nora or something? I know they don't like outsiders and you don't have the paint so-,"

"No," I rushed. "Aloy, my friend…gave this to me. My other clothes were all messed up from the cryo and the um…from riding a machine."

Jenna gave me a knowing smile. "Oh! The redhead." She winked. "I heard about her! Nice catch, Becks. As far as people go in this fucked up world, she seems all right."

 _Great._ The girl I'd had a crush on for years was now teasing me about my…whatever Aloy and I were. I didn't know what to think anymore. I thought I would be ecstatic to see Jenna, _alive_. This should have been my chance to tell her how I really felt, what I had been thinking all this time that I didn't get to say because of the inconvenience of a fucking apocalypse.

 _Isn't that why you couldn't kiss Aloy?_

Something…whether it was intuition or just nerves on my part stopped me from saying anything. Jenna…she wasn't Jenna anymore. I couldn't put my finger on it but this was not the carefree girl I knew in school that met me at my locker every day, that convinced me to ditch class a few days a year to go on an "adventure" as she would call them (we'd end up going for food somewhere before catching a movie), that stayed up late at my house while we compared the latest batch of songs we had acquired and talked about all the things we would do together after university. This Jenna was hard, cold, and scarred, both physically and mentally. I had been in this world for two months, had made friends – both human and otherwise – and signed up for a mission to help rebuild the world.

Jenna had been here for ten years and had endured the nightmare of being alone for most of that.

"We're not-I mean, it's not like that," I stammered.

"Hah! You're such a shitty liar, Becks!" she said. "Well, you move faster than I ever did. Only here for a few months and already fucking a local. She must be special…or really good in bed."

 _Whoa._ "D-don't talk about her like that," I said, my cheeks growing hot. _What the hell is her deal?_ I shook my head. This was bullshit. I needed to get out of here and get back to Aloy. We could come back for Jenna later and figure out what the fuck was wrong with her.

"I need to go. Take me back to Meridian."

Jenna's bravado faded. "Can't do that, Becks."

I scoffed. "Why the hell not?"

A deep and vaguely familiar male voice sounded from the door. "I'm sorry. Am I interrupting anything?"

I turned my attention to the voice's origin. He was a taller man, in good shape, and appeared to be in his 50s, although his calm yet charismatic demeanor made him seem much younger. And why shouldn't he? He had all the money in the world to allow him to get age reversing treatments done.

And yet, as bright as his smile was, as white as his teeth were, they didn't hide the sickening truth that this man was responsible for the destruction of all life on the planet.

"It's fine, Ted," Jenna said before giving me an empty stare and getting off the bed. "I was just explaining to Becks why it's better that she stays here."

"Ah." He blinked a few times before he strode into the room and held out his hand to me. He actually wore some pretty regular looking pants and a long-sleeved shirt. He still had his wedding ring on. I didn't even know he had been married. Where was his wife then? Did he have kids?

He flashed his trillion-dollar smile. "Hello, Rebecca. Long time no see."

I didn't shake his hand. Instead I clenched my fists and glared at him. " _You_. Why the _fuck_ are you here?"

Ted Faro let out a nervous laugh and put his hands up. "Clearly my reputation precedes me, even in this world. I'm sorry about your family, Rebecca. Your father was a good friend to me."

"Don't you dare talk about my dad!" I said through gritted teeth. "You're a coward and a murderer and you don't deserve to be standing there."

"Becks!" Jenna admonished. "He's trying to help! He _saved_ me. He saved you, too!"

Ted placed a calming hand on Jenna's shoulder. "It's all right. This is probably a lot for her to take in, isn't it, Rebecca?"

My death stare remained fixed on Ted. Where the hell was Heph in Ravager form when I needed him? " _Saved_ me? Saved you? Jenna, he's the reason this whole clusterfuck even happened!"

"I won't lie to you, Rebecca. I told your father and Jenna's mother about the Chariot glitch when it happened and told them that the best outcome for everyone was cryogenics if they could get it built in time," Ted explained. "Now, I'm sorry they didn't make it but I'm glad you did. Truly, I am."

"Fuck off," I spat. "You killed the Alphas and deleted APOLLO. You ruined this new world's chance at being better than we were!"

Ted's eye twitched. _That struck a nerve._ "I made sure that this world was not plagued by the mistakes we made."

"You mean the one _you_ made."

"Becks! Stop!" Jenna said. "You're not even giving the man a chance to explain himself."

 _Explain himself? Fat chance._ "What the hell, Jenna? This guy's a dangerous psychopath-,"

Jenna pointed an accusing finger at me. "Watch your words, Becks. I'm not going to stand here and let you talk that way to him."

 _The hell?_ "Jenna, why do you even care so-," It dawned on me. How dependent on him she was. The way her face relaxed when she was talking about "him" earlier. He had found her, "saved" her, somehow given her…an army of crazed cultists?

 _No._

I felt sick to my stomach. _Gross._

"You two…are you…?"

Jenna made a point of putting her hand on Ted's shoulder. "Don't be so surprised, Becks. With all the crazy fuckers of this world it's nice to find someone who understands us and where we come from."

I didn't bother hiding my disgust for them. "That's fucking gross. I thought you knew better, Jenna."

"Really? _You're_ going to lecture _me_? You're not my mother," she snapped.

"Enough," Ted finally said, his voice no longer calm and confident, but sharp and commanding instead. "Rebecca, this world was not going to be ready for APOLLO. I destroyed all but one copy." He smiled faintly. "The plan was for copies to be made after we came out of cryo. I didn't want for the Alphas to be involved because I knew what they'd say, so I created a new access level that I could share with the people I trusted." He looked hopeful. " _We_ would be the ones to teach the new societies here. On our terms. Our way. They would know what we wanted them to know."

I stared at him in horror. "So, you destroyed APOLLO because you wanted to play _god_? You're insane. I suppose you were responsible for that fuckup with HADES as well?"

Ted shook his head. "I heard about that. No, that happened before I came out of cryosleep." He smiled again, that calm, creepy smile. "I was able to pull a few tech tricks to impress the Eclipse holdouts. Ridiculously easy. Figured it would be handy to have them on speed dial - so to speak."

 _Is this guy for real?_

"I did my research, though! I know about Sobeck's clone. I'm impressed that it was able to figure all that out and shut down the subordinate function in time. Gotta give Liz some credit there – maybe her genes were good or something. Dunno how the system could break up like that though."

I despised this man. "Call her an 'it' one more time and see how long your teeth stay in for."

"It's a _clone_ , Rebecca. Made for one function that it performed and now it's not really necessary anymore. In any case, I don't need Liz's override when I have my own." The way this man spoke of Aloy so… _dismissively_. I'd never felt such hatred for a person before.

"Once your Focus signal was strong enough that it came up on the grid we were able to track you – see everything that you saw. Interesting idea, restoring GAIA like that," he said.

This was all bullshit. "What do you want from me?" I growled.

Ted chuckled. "I didn't realize Rob's kid was so angry." He looked at Jenna. "Has she always been this way?"

I wanted for Jenna to snap out of it, be my best friend again. Tell Ted to go fuck himself. But she just shrugged. "I guess."

"Hm…well I suppose it doesn't really matter. You wouldn't have agreed to it anyway so there's no point in asking you," Ted said with an exasperated sigh. He nodded to Jenna. "Let her go."

"What?" Jenna and I said in unison.

"I'll be in my office. We can talk later," he said to her before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. He began to walk away. "Oh, and uh…Rebecca. Don't try to get back in. This facility will be sealed after you leave and the environment outside is…unpleasant. For your sake, I hope you're making the right decision in choosing not to help our cause." With that, he left, leaving Jenna and I staring at each other in an awkward silence.

"Jenna…" I finally said.

She reached in and took my arm, pulling me up with her so that I could stand. It still hurt like a bitch but I was able to walk with her assistance. "Forget it, Becks. I can't believe you. I thought…never mind." She helped me out of the room and began leading me to the bunker exit.

" _Me?_ Jenna, _billions_ died because of him. How can you support him? How can you…" I didn't finish my sentence. I was shock, disgusted, and disappointed in everything that had just transpired. _He brainwashed her. That's the_ only _way she'd act so…so stupid._ I kept telling myself that so that I wouldn't say anything I'd really regret.

"It's fucking freezing out there, so you know," she announced once we had reached the door.

I glared at her in defiance. "Don't worry about me."

Jenna shoved a heavy coat made of thick hide and fur in my hands. "You're making a mistake, Becks. We could have our lives back. Not this…whatever the hell this place has become." She slammed her hand on the door control. The blast door opened and a frigid wind swept through, leaving a chill in my bones. Snow covered the ground and in the distance, I could see the ancient skeletal structures of what used to be the FAS headquarters.

"Jenna," I tried one last time to plead with her as I stepped out into the snow. I desperately wanted my best friend back. I didn't know this woman.

I didn't know her at all.

She stared hard at me, her eyes as cold as the frigid wasteland I would be walking into. Her voice was shaky and for the first time I could clearly hear the weight of what she had endured over the last decade in it. "Goodbye, Becks."

The door slammed shut.


	13. Frozen

I walked for what felt like hours.

After leaving the bunker, I put on the coat Jenna had unceremoniously given me and had bundled up as much as I could. The icy breeze that blew through the region felt like razorblades cutting into my face. It was sometime in the afternoon when I departed, though it was difficult to tell because I had very limited visibility. The snow came down hard, blowing downwards and sideways, the windspeed increasing gradually as I continued away from the mountains.

It wasn't long after I had left Ted's bunker that I realized Jenna was right. It _was_ fucking freezing out there.

 _Jenna._ I still had a hard time processing what I had heard. What I had seen. I was hurt, angry, worried – all at the same time. _She made her choice, I guess._ I would go back for her though, when I could. I grudgingly admitted to myself that there was no chance for us to be…well, anything more than friends. _Maybe that's all we would have been regardless._ I would never know. And if I was being _really_ honest with myself, I don't think I was really that broken up over that fact. Was I upset at her situation? Fuck yes. But there was something else, something different. She had changed. Hell, _I_ had changed. I loved her. She would always be my oldest and closest friend.

But I wasn't _in_ love with her. Not anymore. And I think I hadn't been for a while. Maybe the idea was more attractive than the reality of it? Who the fuck knew?

At least I had time alone to think. I picked a direction that I thought was probably south and started walking. Hopefully I'd be able to find shelter or the weather would clear up enough for me to build a fire…or try to anyway. I still sort of sucked at the whole wilderness thing. Usually, Aloy (or Erend if he was with us) would take care of the campsite setup. I would try but my lame attempt would usually end in me getting frustrated at the fire not starting and the two of them giggling like idiots. I'm pretty sure Heph was laughing at me too, in its own way.

 _Aloy._ Fucking Ted Faro. What a dick. It had made me beyond angry when he called her an 'it'. Just a clone that had performed a function. _Asshole. I'd like to see him perform_ half _the functions she does._

 _Maybe not_ that _half._ I sighed to myself, annoyed that somehow, I was able to stumble and embarrass _myself_ with _my own fucking thoughts._ Classic.

 _You know what? Fuck it._ I grabbed the Focus from my ear and used both hands to break it in half. _Not going to have fucking Faro tracking me anymore._ I was in the middle of nowhere, in the cold, with no food or shelter or any idea where I was going to go, or how I was going to find my friends and explain to them what had happened to me. What I had discovered.

I tossed the pieces to the ground and continued on, approaching the top of a hill that overlooked a small river. I wondered what Aloy would say when she found out that Ted Faro was still alive and that he was still a psycho. I growled under my breath, frustrated that an asswipe like Ted was still invading my thoughts like this and getting under my skin. I needed to think about something else. It sucked being alone like this.

As if on cue, I tripped over an overgrown root buried deep under the snow and fell forward. I flailed my arms to try to prevent myself from falling, but it was no use. I hit the ground face first and rolled down the hill, my body scraping over the sharp rocks and gravel that were not completely covered by the snow. I let out a shrill cry as I splashed into the icy stream and rolled under the surface.

My blood froze and I floated in shock for a few seconds before panic set in and I began thrashing in the icy water. The stream was shallow and through some strength I did not know I had, I managed to pull myself out of there. With a heavy wheeze, I rolled onto the snow, facing the cloudy sky. My side where my ribs were bruised exploded in pain, followed an electrifying jolt that ran throughout my body as I began to notice the freezing water that had soaked into my clothing.

And _fuck_ , did it soak in.

I cried out again as I fought my quickly numbing arms to remove my coat. But I might as well had left it on, for even my clothing underneath were completely drenched. Strands of wet hair touched the sides of my face like icicles. My lips and fingers were completely without feeling. I could barely move my legs.

As I shivered in the snow, sobbing, I started to panic. I had no idea where I was or how to get back to Aloy. I refused to go back to Ted's bunker. I knew I'd rather freeze to death than have anything to do with that bastard.

 _Need to keep going._ I _had_ to find Aloy, tell her that Ted had APOLLO. He'd said something about having special access. It matched the story Aloy had told me – that he's overridden the system and had destroyed all those copies of APOLLO. I still didn't know what the hell he wanted with me, why he had let me go, and why Jenna's mother and my dad had been informed by _Ted_ about the cryogenic tech. If that was true, had Dad known about Zero Dawn? What it _really_ was? Did he know about APOLLO?

 _He_ couldn't _have been part of that._

I groaned in pain as I pushed myself up. Slightly bent over and clutching my side, I was able to hobble forward, with each step becoming more painful than the one before it.

 _Need to keep going. Need to get to Aloy and…tell her. Need to keep going._

* * *

"Casualty reports are estimated to be just under six million, with more than half of those being civilians. Once again, the U.S. military is strongly advising everyone to stay in their homes and to comply with all military personnel instructions. In other news, no survivors have been found yet at ground zero of what remains of London. The Faro ro-,"

The screen turned to black. Mom stood a few feet away from it, holding the remote. "Rebecca, I could use some help with dinner. Do you mind?"

* * *

A powerful gust of wind threw me off balance and I crashed into the hard-packed snow. A sharp chill shot up my spine, causing me to shiver violently as my breaths became shallow and ragged. I tried to push myself up but failed and collapsed again. I was sore, cold, wet, tired and at this point I just wanted to sleep.

 _I'll take a quick break and then keep going after. Just need to close my eyes for a moment._

* * *

"I know you want to be informed – we all do. But having the news on nonstop like that is just…well, it's disturbing."

I sighed. "Mom, it's not like if we turn it off it's not happening," I said while I peeled potatoes.

Mom started up the gas burner under the pan. "I'm aware, Rebecca. I just…" Her eyebrows arched up and she suddenly looked on the verge of tears. "I worry about you. About Dennis. You two shouldn't have to know about or deal with any of this."

I dropped the peeler and wrapped my arms around her. Ever since Dad had told us the news and it had slowly become more public, Mom's mood would alternate between strong and stoic to weeping or worse, hysterical. The swarm hadn't hit our region yet but we knew it was only a matter of time before it did. Meanwhile, construction had been going on underneath the house for the last several months. Dad said we were doing some kind of expansion, though he wouldn't say why. Dennis and I were not allowed down there. "No exceptions," Dad would say.

"Thank you," she murmured once I had pulled away. "Let's um," she sniffed, struggling to compose herself, "let's make dinner. I'm starving. Are you…almost done with those potatoes?"

* * *

" _Becks!"_

 _"SEVERELY WEAK VITALS DETECTED. SYSTEM RECOMMENDS IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION TO AVOID DEATH."_

"How the hell did she end up all the way out here?"

* * *

"Yeah, just on the last one. It kept fighting me."

Mom smiled. "Always fighting with something, whether it's a potato or your brother."

"They're different?"

"Rebecca!" She reached over and pretended to swat at the back of my head.

I gave her a smug grin before moving the collection of peeled potatoes toward her. "How should I cut them?"

"Oh, just in quarters is fine," Mom said. She frowned and shook her head, as though she had been lost in her thoughts.

"Mom?"

"I'm fine, honey. Now…if you could cut those up for me I can get them started here. Is Jenna coming later? I know this was going to be your last sleepover and all…"

The air suddenly felt very heavy. An odd, metallic stench permeated the kitchen.

"No," I said. "I was thinking maybe Aloy could come over."

Mom gave me a perplexed look. "Aloy? Who is that? Did you make a new friend at the university or-,"

I huffed. "Mom, you know Aloy. You've met her before."

Mom seemed deep in thought again. "Hm…Aloy, Aloy. It doesn't ring a bell. Aloy-,"

* * *

" _Aloy!_ We need to get out of here…storm's getting worse!"

 _Need to go. Need to get back to her…tell her about Ted…_

"No, no, _no!_ Becks, come _on!_ Please!"

 _"SYSTEM DETECTS POTENTIAL SITE FOR SHELTER. UPLOADING COORDINATES."_

 _Have to go._

"She's barely breathing. We need to get her someplace warm and dry or she'll die!"

 _Mom's going to be pissed if I'm late_ again. _This happens every damn time Jenna and I go to the library._

"Go on. I'll meet you there. Get a fire going and unpack as many of the blankets as you can!"

A voice. A soft, low voice that spoke close to my ear, sending a gentle warmth spreading to the rest of me. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep.

"We have to get you out of these clothes, Becks. Please don't be mad." There was a slight pull, then a harder tug. I shivered again, not quite as violently as before. Something frozen touched my skin before I felt the comforting sensation of being wrapped in furs. The world blurred as I was lifted off the ground.

 _No._ Where were they taking me? I needed to get back.

* * *

"…come back to me, Becks. Please?"

 _Need to get back to Aloy._

 ** _"…there is a way. Cryogenics. It's all experimental technology, but it's our only hope, sweetheart. I think we have a good shot."_**

 _Aloy._

 ** _"You're making a mistake, Becks. We could have our lives back."_**

Lips pressed against my forehead. "…don't want to lose you. Already lost too many. I _can't_ lose you."

 ** _"…you destroyed APOLLO because you wanted to play_** **god _?"_**

"…maybe you can try a different beer this time. I think it just takes…the right one-,"

 ** _"Only here for a few months and already fucking a local…"_**

 _"THIS UNIT IS EQUIPPED WITH AUDIO OUTPUT. SYSTEM HAS UPLOADED RECOVERED DATA FROM FOCUS TO UNIT. UNIT CAN BE REPURPOSED FOR RECREATIONAL AUDIO OUTPUT IN THE EVENT OF INJURY. PROCEEDING WITH PLAYBACK. TRACK ONE."_

 ** _"…think I like this. Thanks for showing me, Becks."_**

* * *

I opened my eyes and was greeted with…blurriness? It took a few seconds of blinking but eventually my sight improved and I could see the tan ceiling of a makeshift canvas tent.

 _What?_

My side aching was the first sign that told me I was alive. It wasn't the sharp, debilitating pain I had endured earlier, but a dull, distant throbbing. I inhaled deeply and froze when I felt my bare skin touch the heavy furs that covered me. I slowly lifted up the furs and saw that my Nora clothing had been removed from me, leaving me in only my underwear.

 _Well, that's different._ Even at home, I always slept in at least a t-shirt and shorts or pants. I wasn't cold at all, though. The furs were doing an excellent job of keeping me warm.

 _And dry._ Flashes of my tumble into the water and the snowstorm surfaced.

"Becks?" A familiar voice. I glanced to my right and saw Aloy sitting on the ground, her back propped up against a small pile of backpacks.

I opened my mouth to speak but all that came out was a raspy whine. My throat felt dry and raw.

Aloy shifted so that she was on her knees next to me. Her hazel eyes were bloodshot and wide with worry. She had heavy, dark bags under her eyes and looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"Don't try to talk," she said. That same low, gentle tone. "You need to keep resting."

I could only stare back at her and blink.

Without warning, Aloy leaned in and wrapped her arms around me tightly, burying her face in the crook of my neck.

"Hi?" I whispered. _This was_ very _different._

"Don't talk. I thought…I thought I lost you, too." Her voice choked on the last few words. She pulled away, sniffing a few times. "We um…found you. Well," she corrected, "HEPHAESTUS found you. It started tracking your signal as soon as they took you."

I tried to smile. "Are you okay?" Still barely any sound.

Aloy shook her head in disapproval. "You need to rest. We're all fine. But you're still too weak and I…I need to make sure that you recover fully. So, get some sleep." She sat back against the backpacks again. "I'll be here. Erend went to go find dinner."

I nodded before sinking back into the pillow under my head. "Okay."

"Hey! I said 'no talking'!" she scolded. I reached my hand out from under the furs and grasped hers. She looked down at me in surprise for a moment before her expression finally relaxed and she held my hand, continuing to do so until I fell asleep.


	14. Fools Rush In

When I awoke again, I was surprised to discover that I felt _much_ better than I had in a while. My side no longer ached, I was warm and dry, and overall I just felt rested and energized. I wondered how long I'd been asleep for. It seemed like forever ago that Aloy had found me and-

 _Aloy._

I rolled over on my side to face where Aloy had been sitting when I fell asleep. Sure enough, she was there, still somewhat propped up against the backpacks, sleeping. Well, actually that's not entirely true. She was sleeping, yes, and also snoring – which was this ungodly sound that could have come from the lovechild of a tractor and a table saw.

 _Nice._ I had to stifle a laugh. It was kind of cute though it probably wouldn't have been if I hadn't been awake and rested already.

I decided to poke her. I wanted to get up, go outside, eat, enjoy _not_ being dead, eat some more…

"Aloy?" I said as gently as I could. I used one hand to give her leg a soft nudge. She grimaced before opening her eyes, blinking a few times at me before I think she realized I was awake.

"Becks...you-how are you feeling?" she asked, the sleep still present in her voice.

I smiled. "A lot better. But uh…I'm kind of hungry. Actually, really hungry."

Aloy nodded and stretched. "I'll get you something to eat. Oh, here." She motioned to a pile of folded clothes. "Your clothes are dry. If you want to dress I'll be right back." She made to leave the tent.

"Aloy, wait," I said. _She needs to know about Ted. About APOLLO. About…everything._ "Ted Faro, he-,"

But she put a hand up to stop me. "I know. We…watched it. HEPHAESTUS got the data from your broken Focus. We know you were being tracked and…I know about Ted Faro and APOLLO. And…" She sighed, clearly uncomfortable. "I know about Jenna. I'm…I'm sorry."

 _Well, at least I don't have to worry about breaking the news to her._ "You have nothing to be sorry for," I said. "She-she's not…she's different, now. A lot of things are different, I guess." _Lame._

She shook her head. "I shouldn't have rushed out to meet the Eclipse. Maybe then you wouldn't have been taken."

"No. If they hadn't taken me, we would have never found out about APOLLO. It's okay, Aloy." In truth, it was a little awkward talking to Aloy in my underwear, (albeit I was covered by a blanket) but I didn't want her to pity me or feel guilty. We needed to move on and get back to our mission. _I_ was ready to move on. "Also, um…thank you for saving me. Again."

She smiled. It was good to see her smiling again. I still wanted to talk to her about how she had acted toward me back in Meridian, and also about the…kiss. Where we stood. The really obvious elephant in the room. "You don't have to thank me. But uh, Erend might need some talking to. I think he feels guilty for letting you get taken."

"He shouldn't. But I'll talk to him."

Another smile. _Nice._ "All right. I'll be um…I'll be back. I'm going to get you something to eat. Oh, HEPHAESTUS can put your Focus data on a new Focus once we find one. We can get one from All Mother Mountain on the way to GAIA Prime, if that's okay. If you're feeling up to it, I think we should start heading back toward Meridian. There's a river not far from here that we can get to by sun fall."

I frowned. "You're not going back to get APOLLO? What about Ted?"

"I can't get inside that bunker without clearance, Becks. And as much as I want to wring that man's neck, we still have to find the rest of the subcores. If he knows that's what we're doing then we have to get to them before he does," she said.

 _Ugh._ As frustrated as I was with that answer, Aloy was right. Ted couldn't get his hands on the other subsystems. Without the physical subcores, Ted had no power over GAIA, even if he did manage to get override clearance.

"I get it. I'll um…I'll get changed then."

Aloy nodded. "Good. I'll be back," she said before disappearing through the tent flap.

* * *

"So, these 'dogs', what were they for?" Erend asked.

I absentmindedly kicked a rock, sending it bouncing into the river. I watched as it quickly sank to the bottom, easily seen through the clear water. There was no pollution here and every body of water I had seen so far had looked cleaner than most of the filtered stuff back home.

Aloy had been right – we had arrived at the river shore, far to the south of Maker's End, where FAS and Ted's bunker had been, just around sunset. I had felt well enough to walk the entire way, with Aloy and Erend closely observing me and Heph not saying much most of the journey, opting instead to waddle alongside us quietly.

"Uh, lots of things," I explained. "Some were used to do work but most were for companionship." I continued unpacking the camping supplies while Aloy worked on the fire and Erend set up the tent and beds. "You could play with them, too, and teach them tricks!"

"Tricks?"

"Yeah. Here, I'll show you. Heph, come here." I glanced around until I found what I was looking for. I grinned as I held the stick in my hand.

The Watcher trotted over to me. _"STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

"Here!" I threw the stick down the shoreline. It bounced a few times on the rocks before resting. "Now, go get it."

Heph turned to face the stick before turning back at me. Its light flashed. _"SYSTEM DOES NOT SEE PRODUCTIVITY OUTPUT IN FETCHING DEAD FLORA."_

I rolled my eyes. "Just get the damn stick, Heph."

Heph clicked at me and left to go retrieve the stick. I turned to Erend. "See, now with a _real_ dog, the dog wouldn't ask stupid questions. It would just go get you the stick."

Erend raised an eyebrow. "Uh…okay. But why?"

HEPHAESTUS returned, without the stick. _"SYSTEM DOES NOT DETECT APPARATUS ON UNIT TO RETRIEVE DEAD FLORA. SYSTEM CAN TRANSFER TO UNIT WITH APPROPRIATE APPARATUS IF DESIRED."_

 _Oh. Watchers don't have hands._ "Oops. Sorry, Heph. No, it's okay. Thanks for the effort, though." I turned back to Erend. "Because it's fun and the dog gets exercise and you get to interact with it."

 _"SYSTEM RECOMMENDS BECKS RETRIEVE DEAD FLORA. SYSTEM PREDICTS EXERCISE AND INTERACTION AS A RESULT."_

I stuck my tongue out at the Watcher. "Don't tell me how to live my life, Heph."

"I don't know…that sounds weird," Erend said while adjusting one of the wood poles that held the tent. "There! Should be good, Aloy."

"Thanks, Erend." The redhead had just finished lighting the fire and had now walked over to where we were standing. The smoke floated away from the campsite and dissipated overhead, where the sky now boasted vibrant streaks of blue, orange, and purple. The dying light from the setting sun shot across the top of the water. I took a moment to breathe in the scents, take in the scene, and watch as the sun crept below the horizon. There were moments of beauty in this new world that I took advantage of, things that I'd never seen before, not even in my time. After ARTEMIS, after Jenna, after my harrowing trek through Maker's End, I made a promise to myself that I would take more moments like this.

Aloy and Erend must have noticed, because they simply stood by and let me have that moment.

"All right, well I'm gonna get an early sleep then if we're going back toward Meridian tomorrow," Erend finally announced before yawning. "Mind if I take the tent tonight?"

Aloy and I both voiced that we didn't mind in unison and watched as the Vanguard captain made his way to the tent. Aloy then turned to me. "Are you tired? Did you want to go to sleep, too?"

"Nah," I said, shaking my head. "I was actually just going to go sit by the fire if that's okay."

She looked at me with hopeful eyes. "Mind if I join you?"

 _Time to have the talk, I guess._ "Not at all."

We walked over to the fire, which was several paces away from the tent where Erend slept. A few minutes later, we were sitting down, Aloy had made some tea, which was surprisingly good, and HEPHAESTUS had positioned itself to the side of where we sat.

We ended up talking about nothing in particular for a while. Aloy asked me some more questions about my world. I was almost too happy for the distraction.

"…and your parents weren't upset?"

"Oh, they were. But my dad kept trying not to laugh. Mom was way more serious about it," I said. "That girl never bothered me again, though."

Aloy was clearly amused. "You knocked out two of her teeth, Becks."

"And she threw my backpack in a fountain!" I countered and took a cautious sip of the hot tea. "You would have done the same thing."

She laughed. "Really, now? I'm beginning to wonder if this 'high school' of yours was just a fighting ground where people complained about learning."

I shrugged. "No, there were _some_ cool things. I really liked my programming classes. I would hang out with my friends a lot, too. We'd go to games, dances, coding competitions-,"

"You had dancing?" Aloy leaned in closer, her interest obvious.

"Uh…yeah. I mean, I only went because Jenna wanted me to. They weren't horrible." When she seemed confused I realized what she had actually meant. "Oh, like _dancing_ dancing. Yeah, we had lots of different kinds. You guys, well, I mean the _Nora_ seem to have it, too. I saw it at the Proving festival."

Aloy didn't say anything.

I bit my lip, wondering if I had said something wrong. "Sorry, I don't mean that you and the Nora are-,"

"Do you know any?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"Dances. From your time. Do you know any?"

 _Um…_ "Heh. I guess? I never had much need for them." I gestured around us. "Obviously, I don't need them here, either."

But Aloy wouldn't let it go. "Show me." She shot me a daring grin.

"I…but there isn't any music." _Dance…with_ Aloy _?_ My mind immediately jumped to the fact that we hadn't even talked about the kiss or…anything else. _Now she wants to dance?_

 _She saved your fucking life. The least you can do is show her some lame dance._

 _"THIS UNIT CAN PROVIDE AUDIO FOR THE PURPOSE OF RECREATIONAL MOVEMENT. AUDIO HAS BEEN UPLOADED FROM FOCUS."_ A few feet away, Heph's light blinked at us. I'm pretty sure it was fucking around with me and knew that I was hesitant to even attempt this.

"Uh…sure, okay." I stood up and Aloy did the same. She seemed unbothered by what a stuttering mess I was. Either that or she was entertained by it. _Ugh…maybe this is payback or something._ "We can um…go over here and-,"

 _"SYSTEM HAS SELECTED APPROPRIATE SONG. PLAYBACK INITIATING."_

"Wait, what?" A slow, piano ballad from the early 21st century began. I knew it was in fact, a cover of the original song, which had come out many decades before. Something Dennis, of course, would have made fun of me for having in my music library.

 ** _"Wise men say…"_**

 _Fuck. Seriously?!_ "Uh…maybe another song?"

 ** _"Only fools rush in…"_**

But Aloy's face had already lit up. "This is nice! I like it."

I sighed internally. _Well played, Heph. Fuck you._ "But um, what about Erend?"

Aloy scoffed. "He sleeps like the dead. Please, Becks?"

 _Here we go._ I only knew one way to dance to this song. I took Aloy's hand and put it on my waist. "So, um…you're taller so you put your hand here and then I'll put mine…here," I said, trying not to show how nervous I was as I put my hand on her arm and took her other hand in mine. "And now uh…just move like this." I tried to smile. "And try not to step on me."

Aloy looked at our arrangement and then down before chewing on her lip. "I…think I understand."

She immediately stepped on my foot.

"Ah! Sorry."

"Ouch…okay, so yeah…not _that,_ okay?" I winced. _Glad she's not actually listening to the lyrics. For fuck's sake, Heph._

We started again, this time slower as we both grew more comfortable with our positions. I found myself moving closer to her, the music becoming almost hypnotic as we moved in a slow semi-circle near the campfire. I took a moment to look at her face and nearly laughed at the sheer concentration that had taken over. This girl didn't half-ass _anything._

"So, did you do this often?" she asked.

I laughed quietly. "Oh, no. I mean not like…not like this. Um…this kind of dance is usually for people that are uh…"

Aloy's eyes widened. She must have understood. She froze, the music continuing on without us. "Oh! I-I'm sorry, Becks! I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Especially after-," She tried to pull away from me, but I didn't let go.

I didn't want to. "You're not. Song's not over yet, though." I gave her an encouraging smile, hoping she'd stay. _Please stay._

"I-okay. If you're sure…" She stared into my eyes, as though searching for any signs of doubt or insecurity in them.

"I am." I moved a bit closer, until we were nearly embracing. We were both silent for a while, just listening to the music and moving along to it.

It was actually Aloy that broke the silence. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

I looked up at her. "Thanks. And thanks, you know, for coming to get me."

She squeezed my hand and tightened her hold on my waist. "You gave me- _us_ quite the scare, Becks." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "I really thought you were going to die and then I…couldn't say what I needed to say to you." There was pain and sadness in her eyes and it tore me apart to see her like this.

I let go of her hand and placed it on her freckled cheek. Her skin felt warm against my palm. "But I didn't," I said. "So, you can say what you need to say."

I heard her breath hitch. "Um…well. I would, but I get the ah…feeling you already know what it's going to be." She leaned into my touch and placed her free hand on my other hip.

 _Oh, wow. Your move, Becks._ "Maybe I don't." I smirked, trying to be a smartass.

Aloy cleared her throat. "That I…well, you're a smart woman, Becks. That is…I didn't mean to scare you with…when kissed. I shouldn't have done that. You've been through a lot and I don't want you to think I'm trying to take advantage of you and-,"

 _Never._ "I won't lie. I was really nervous and had never done anything like before. I thought, no, I _knew_ I had- _have_ …feelings for you, Aloy. But I think I also felt guilty."

Aloy nodded. "Because you never got to tell Jenna how you felt?"

"I didn't even get to see if we had a _chance._ " _Would we have a thousand years ago?_ I would never know. "But I can't wonder for the rest of my life if something would have been different when I _know…_ I know how I feel about you." _There. It's out there._

The song ended, leaving us with only the quiet splashing of the river and the crackling of the campfire next to us. We did not let go of each other, however.

I sighed and met her gaze again. "I'm sorry for how I acted, Aloy. You are fucking amazing and brilliant and strong and a little bit crazy, you know, 'cause of the whole cliff jumping thing. That's fucking suicidal, by the way."

She laughed and shook her head. For a moment, I thought I wasn't doing _too_ horribly.

I continued, my chest feeling wound up again as the butterflies in my stomach made me wonder if I was doing the right thing or just making a fool of myself. "You deserve someone just as good. And…I don't understand half the shit that goes on here. Part of the whole "spending a thousand years in a tube" thing. But I think that if I had to do it all over again – cryosleep and all, then I would have wanted you to find me again. Back in Meridian I would...I'd be pissed that people pretty much worshiped you. But now I realize that I actually had a chance with someone like you, and…and I just wish I hadn't fucked it up." I let go of her cheek and looked away. It was ridiculous for me to assume that she would just forgive and forget after I had hurt her like that.

"Becks?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Can I kiss you again?"

 _Oh…_ Well, that was unexpected. "I, uh…yeah!" I took a moment to take a deep breath so that I would stop stumbling. "Yes."

Aloy closed her eyes and leaned in slowly as I did the same. Our lips met – the temperature contrast just as shocking as it had been before. She moved against my mouth slowly while pulling me closer to her as I wrapped my arms around her neck. The kiss deepened – she began to gently probe my lips with her tongue. A chill swept through me and I gasped as it suddenly became a lot more difficult to breathe properly. I felt much weaker than I had earlier as my legs started to lose their strength. Apparently, it was obvious because Aloy noticed.

"You're still recovering. We should get you to bed," she said after pulling away.

 _Oh, fuck no. Not now._ "I'm fine." I leaned in to kiss her again, my mind heavy with what was happening, what could happen next, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.

But Aloy wasn't so easily swayed. "Becks…"

"Here," I pulled away from her and grabbed a thick blanket before laying it out on the dirt. "Now you don't have to worry." I sat on the blanket and motioned for her to come over.

She hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't. I'll let you know if I start feeling unwell. I promise." _Real classy, Becks._

Aloy replied with a shy smile, which was probably one of the most attractive, adorable things I'd ever seen her do, before getting down on her knees on the blanket. Before she could say or do anything else, I grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to me so that I was kissing her again. She immediately reciprocated and wrapped her arms around me as she made a quiet moan into my mouth, her vaguely smoky scent and warm breath intoxicating. The sounds she made lit my nerves on fire – she _knew_ it, too; waited for my shallow breaths and shivers before she'd make another one.

I grabbed at her tangled braids, holding them in my fist and silently admired their complexity and volume. Aloy let out a small whimper before gently pushing me back onto the blanket, her weight falling down on me and her legs straddling mine.

 _Oh, wow…this is new._

The next few minutes were a blur. Aloy ran her hands up and down my arms while skillfully focusing her mouth on my lips, jaw, neck, and shoulders. As far as I knew, she'd had no prior experience like this before. _But apparently that doesn't fucking matter._ I felt a coiling in my lower stomach that reached down to my core, a sensation that for the most part, I was unfamiliar with. Aloy's leg pressed up against me and I let out a small cry. She suddenly stopped and looked down at me, her hazel eyes cloudy and far away.

"Becks…" She was panting. A light sheen of sweat covered her forehead and her face was flushed. "This…we-,"

I gave a half-smile as I too, floated back down to the earth. "Should…probably do this when there's _not_ an occupied tent nearby," I finished for her, my own breathing uneven.

Aloy promptly rolled off of me and helped me sit up. She hesitated again before looking at me. "Thank you, Becks. For, um…showing me how to dance."

I actually fucking blushed. _What a weird day._ I kissed Aloy on her cheek.

"Anytime."


	15. Practice

"So, you're just going to keep your elbow like I showed you."

"This is hard."

Aloy took a step back and gave me an unamused glance. "It takes practice, Becks."

"Then you do it."

Aloy sighed. "No, because I've been doing it for years and you're going to have to learn eventually."

I blew a strand of stray hair out of my face as I tried to adjust my stance to mimic how she had shown me earlier. "Like this?"

"I-no, Becks. That's not even close." Aloy approached me from the side and adjusted my arms again. "There. Stay like that."

"I look stupid." I thought learning archery was going to be badass – I'd get to help Aloy and Erend hunt and not feel completely useless (despite Aloy's objections, I still wanted to do more to help since Heph had taken over much of the role of talking to the other subsystems). Instead I was just discovering that I had terrible posture and that my aim was shit.

"No, you look like you're in a good position to take a shot," Aloy said. "Now, hit the target."

I looked ahead. Several paces directly in front of us stood a prop made of packed straw. On the ground nearby were the fallen arrows that represented my failed attempts to hit the target.

"Come on, you've got this, Becks."

That put a small smile on my face. _Would be nice to impress her._ It was such a payoff seeing the look on Aloy's face when I had figured out the code for the interface with HEPHAESTUS, or when she had listened to music from my Focus for the first time. If I could impress her at a skill that she was an expert at…well, that was definitely a good thing.

I released the arrow, the tension in my arm coming undone. It soared through the air so fast that tracking it was nearly impossible. We watched as it grazed the top of the dummy target and landed in the dirt just beyond.

I couldn't help but let out a frustrated groan. I lowered the bow. "Well, that was fucking fantastic."

Aloy didn't seem to be as bothered as I was. "That was actually much better than before. Probably your best attempt so far."

"But I missed," I pointed out.

The redhead gave me a disbelieving look. "If you think you're going to master the bow in a day, Becks, you're wrong. Now, again?"

I pretended to pout. "I'm hungry. Let's eat instead."

Aloy laughed, the sound of it melodious and addicting. _I love her laugh._ If all I had to do was say nonsensical stuff to get her to do that, then maybe life here wouldn't be so shitty after all.

I had recovered well enough from my ordeal in Maker's End – my ribs had finally healed and all I had was a small scar beneath my bottom lip from accidentally cutting it. There had been no word from Jenna or Ted and we weren't attacked by Eclipse on our trip to Meridian or to the subsystem locations afterward. In the days that followed we had visited DEMETER and POSEIDON, the systems responsible for restoring the flora and oceans on Earth. Both were located deep within the jungle south of Meridian, which meant another "fun" trip in the fucking humidity but it ended up being worth it. Neither system was equipped for vocal interface but Heph was able to communicate with them in its own way and we had retrieved the subcores without any problem. No Eclipse, no death-defying tricks, no kidnappings – it was almost as though things were going _right_.

All that was left was to find AETHER, stop by MINERVA and pick up its subcore at the Spire outside the city, and finally ELEUTHIA. Easy, right?

No. Of course it's never that fucking simple. HADES was not in the list of coordinates Heph had and APOLLO was in the hands of a psychopathic maniac. We didn't even know if GAIA could be rebooted after its repairs were complete without all of the subcores. Aloy didn't seem to want to focus on that little hiccup, though. I think she figured the less distractions we had right now, the easier it would be to get the subcores were knew about and then go back for APOLLO. Or maybe she just didn't want to deal with it. It was a conversation that didn't come up often.

"We've already arranged to eat with Talanah and Erend this evening," Aloy said with a frown. She glanced toward Meridian in the distance, only a few hours walk away from the grassy fields we stood in. The sun was beginning to start the finishing length of its journey across the sky and a cool breeze had picked up, rustling the grasses around us and sending a chill through me despite the warm clothes I wore. I decided after my "adventure" in Maker's End that I despised the cold and all of its friends.

"That's right. Sorry, I guess I forgot," I admitted. It's not that I wasn't looking forward to hanging out with Erend and maybe giving Talanah another chance when I wasn't in a pissy mood, but I didn't know what to expect. Things had been a bit…different since that night when Aloy and I had danced.

And fuck, did we _dance_.

We had gone to bed shortly after our…session. Aloy had moved her bed closer to mine, just enough so that she could hold my hand as I drifted off into sleep and her soon after. HEPHAESTUS had kept watch in the event that Ted sent more Eclipse after us. When I awoke, the others were already up. Aloy had handed me breakfast as she did most mornings but this time she had mixed things up a bit by giving me a soft kiss on my cheek as she handed me my food. It was ridiculously cute and domestic, and Erend hadn't said anything and continued stuffing his face with food. My guess was that Aloy might have told him something earlier that morning but I didn't press the topic. Everything just seemed… _normal._

We hadn't had any in depth conversations about our…whatever we were, but Aloy seemed much happier than usual in the days that followed. She laughed a lot more and the massive weight on her shoulders that she always seemed to carry around with her wasn't as prevalent. Not that I wasn't elated – I was – but every once in a while, when we were walking I'd catch her staring at me or giving me quick glances. When she realized she'd been caught, Aloy would hold my gaze, her own expression intense and focused, before shifting her attention to the trail ahead. I didn't know what that meant or why she wouldn't just say something. It didn't bother me but it did confuse me. I supposed I could talk to her about it but it seemed like a strange thing to bring up. I knew at some point I should bring up…us, but I didn't know how or when.

"It's all right," she said. Her casual demeanor shifted to one of concern. "You're still okay going, right? Talanah has been wanting to give me the latest on lodge news ever since we arrived in Meridian."

"It's fine," I said quickly. As much as I wanted an evening alone with Aloy "I'm looking forward to trying the food at this place anyway."

Aloy grinned. "Food seems to be a good incentive to use on you. I'll remember that."

 _Wonderful._ "Yeah, yeah. So, another try at this, then?" I asked, gesturing to the hunting bow I held in my hand.

"Sure," Aloy said. "You've done it a few times now, so why don't you set up your stance?"

 _Or_ she _could._ "Actually, I forgot."

Aloy didn't seem convinced. She crossed her arms. "What? B-but we've gone over it-,"

"I do better when you help me," I told her. In truth, I would probably miss again because I needed a lot more practice. That didn't mean I couldn't have a _little_ fun.

Aloy sighed and approached me from behind. She grasped my arms and began setting up my position to take the shot. "Okay, so just like this…bring this arm up like that…" I felt her breath as she gave me instructions, so close to me that it took a great deal of willpower to keep my gaze straight ahead and not turn my head. _One slight turn._ That's all it would take and my lips would be on hers again. If the day was growing colder, I didn't notice as my body had this annoying tendency to heat up whenever I was close to Aloy. _Funny, that._ Ever since that night when we danced, I knew I wanted to be closer to her. Even if it was in silly doses like her showing me how to hold a bow properly.

I let my arm drop out of place a little. "Like this?"

Aloy blinked a few times before shaking her head. "No, Becks, I-wait. Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Maybe."

She released me and stepped back. "Damn it, Becks," she exclaimed, a slight grin forming on her face. "This could help save your life. Don't you _want_ to learn it?"

I nodded. I hadn't intended to get caught but I was tired of shooting a bow and really just wanted to be around Aloy right now. "Of course, I do," I said and set the bow on the ground. I walked over to the frustrated redhead and took her calloused hands in mine. "But I haven't gotten a minute alone with you in what feels like forever." It was the truth and I didn't care how stupid I sounded at that moment.

Aloy sighed and closed her eyes before leaning in, touching her forehead with mine. "You know you're going to have to learn eventually, right?" She opened her eyes, the hazel irises filled with concern and worry. "I mean…you're doing very well considering you've never done anything like this but…I mean, what happened-,"

"Nope," I said, putting a finger to her lips and shushing her. "I'm okay, Aloy. And yeah, I'll need to get better at this. But like you said, that takes practice, right?"

"I…guess." She released my other hand and wrapped her arms around my waist before pulling me close to her. I loved this feeling - her holding me like this. I returned the embrace, my palms pressed flat against her back. I could only feel the rough, hard material of her armor and I was curious as to what her skin felt like underneath the layers of cloth and metal.

The thought made my face grow hot. It seemed that I didn't have control over my thoughts half the time when I was close to her. Another thought occurred to me. "Aloy?"

She looked down, her slight height advantage noticeable now. "Hm?"

 _Well, this won't be awkward at all._ "Do you…or the Nora-I mean, do you guys have a word for what…what _we_ are?"

Aloy inhaled sharply and for a moment I wondered if I had made her uncomfortable. "Well," she said, "normally if two people are together for-forever, they are mates. But um…" She gave a quiet, nervous laugh. "I think that implies another um…level of uh…you get the idea."

I moved up and gave her a quick kiss. "I get it."

"Good," she said, seemingly relieved. Then her eyes went wide in alarm. "Er…not that I'm suggesting we-that you…I'm not doing a very good job of explaining I don't think."

 _I think nervous Aloy might be my favorite._ "You're fine. It was just a question," I said. I glanced at the sun. "We should probably head back to the city if we're going to meet Erend and Talanah later."

"Yes," Aloy sighed. I couldn't tell if she was relieved the conversation was over or that I hadn't been offended at the answer she gave.

I picked up the bow and quiver and took her hand in mine as we began to make the trek back to Meridian.


	16. Purpose

"…and so, I was on the ground, right? Completely scraped up. I was basically useless at this point."

Aloy gave a sideways glance to Talanah. "You weren't useless. You were distracting it!"

Talanah shook her head as she laughed, causing a few strands of long black hair to fall in front of her dark eyes. She had been giving an animated retelling of how she and Aloy tracked down and defeated Redmaw, which was the name of a really scary Thunderjaw, which apparently was a kind of fucking scary machine that was not to be messed with. I mean sure, Heph could override it if it were around, but Aloy had fought quite a few of those things and she said it was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. _Like everything else I seem to be participating in lately._

Talanah wasn't as bad as I had first thought. It was easy enough explaining to her that I was another outcast of the Nora. Aloy didn't want to start shocking people with where I was really from just yet and Erend seemed to agree. There was definitely a master-apprentice relationship between her and Aloy but I admit, I spent a great deal of the evening keeping a close watch on her. I knew Aloy wasn't the type to play me but I couldn't help but be a little jealous every fucking time Talanah said something "funny" and Aloy would laugh like it was the funniest shit ever.

 _Ugh._ I was frustrated because it felt like I had to fight for time with Aloy alone but I was also annoyed at myself for being petty and jealous in the first place. We met up with Erend and Talanah at the Meridian Hunters Lodge earlier in the evening and had eaten dinner before Erend and Talanah began their grand initiative to outdrink each other. It was interesting seeing Aloy in a social situation where she actually _liked_ the people she was around. The only other situation I'd see her in was at the Proving festival, where she didn't really seem to care for the Nora at all, and whenever we were around Erend. It was great seeing her relaxed and enjoying herself.

I, on the other hand, was already over it. Honestly, after a frustrating day of failing at archery (or "practicing", as Aloy called it), still not being used to the food here, and just being restless in general, I wanted to go back to Olin's old house with Aloy and just…be us. _Whatever that meant._ Our talk earlier had done little to ease my concern or answer my questions and I _hated_ the directionless feeling that had been haunting me for the past few days. I wasn't sure _why_ I cared so much but I did.

"…what do you think, Becks? Becks?"

I snapped out of my trance, feeling stupid when I realized that Aloy had been asking me a question this whole time that I was pouting about not having her attention. "Uh…sorry, what?" _Nice, Becks. Now she's going to think you're a rude jerk._

Talanah, of course, had to jump in. "Looks like someone was daydreaming," she teased, flashing me one of her dumb, perfectly white smiles.

I shrugged, trying to save face and probably failing miserably. "No, I'm good," I said, trying not to seem affected by Talanah's poking, though honestly, I'm not sure why I even cared. I turned to Aloy, and maybe was just a _bit_ exaggerated in my redirection. "Sorry, what did you say, Aloy?"

Aloy squinted slightly, as though studying me, but continued. "Talanah had asked if we'd be willing to take care of a job for the Lodge."

"I would send one of the Hawks to do it, but they're all committed to other things right now," Talanah explained.

I've never been very good at masking my emotions. _Great, so now we have to take a break from the mission to help some random people when the future of GAIA hangs in the balance. And Ted Faro is just sitting in his bunker planning whatever the fuck he's planning while he keeps Jenna as a prisoner._ I signed. _No, not a prisoner. She's there by choice._ I hated the reality of it almost as much as I hated Ted. I was disappointed that Aloy would even entertain the question. We had a job to do. Why were we fucking around with something that wasn't even our business?

I realized Aloy and Talanah were waiting for an answer. I tried to act nonchalant about it. "Whatever. I mean, not like we're doing anything else."

I could tell Talanah was forcing her smile while Aloy just seemed confused. "It's on the way to um…on our way home, Becks."

 _Whatever that means._ "Yeah, it's fine. What's the job?"

Talanah gave Aloy a confused glance before speaking to me. "Well, we had a number of hunters go out toward the north a couple months ago. They never came back. My people don't know that terrain, but you and Aloy might."

It was stupid and petty that I was even getting upset about this, but after days of feeling like I just had no purpose anymore, this was my tipping point. Technically, Aloy didn't need me on our GAIA mission because we had Heph, I couldn't fight or defend myself, and the only people I knew from my world was a psychopath and a girl that should have been my best friend but wanted nothing to do with me. Now we were going to go track down some idiots that probably got lost and if we ran into trouble I would only be in the way, so what the hell was the point?

I finished my water and set the cup down harder than I probably needed to. "Yeah. It's fine, Aloy. I'm actually kind of tired so I'm going to head back to the house and get some sleep. See you guys later," and with that I stood up and left the lodge in a blur before anyone could say anything to me.

I don't even remember how I got back to the house. I surprised myself by having navigated my way through the city to get there. I stormed into the house, slamming the door behind me and lit the fireplace before going upstairs. _This is all bullshit._ For the first time in a while, I felt homesick again. I didn't have a purpose here. What was my future? Following Aloy around and worrying about her while she tried to keep me alive and get shit done at the same time?

I sat down on the bed and buried my face in my hands with a heavy sigh. I felt like an idiot and was ashamed for storming off like that in front of Aloy and her friends. Aloy had taken me so that I could spend time with her and some of the people she trusted and I had thrown that back in her face. I knew I was being a shitty girlfriend. _Or whatever we are._

I was torn from my self-loathing thoughts by the creak of the door opening, followed by it slamming shut and Aloy's voice calling up. "Becks? You here?"

I took a deep breath. I did _not_ want to deal with this right now. "Yeah…yeah, I'm here. Upstairs."

I waited on the bed, silently counting the muffled footsteps as Aloy made her way to the second floor. She stopped at the top of the stairs and stood there, staring at me. For a moment, I figured that she was going to start yelling at me, tell me how rude I had been and that she couldn't be with someone like that.

Instead she was…concerned? "Are you okay?"

 _Ah, shit._ "Yeah, I'm just…" _No._ I didn't want to pretend anymore. "No, Aloy. I'm not okay."

Aloy strode across the room and sat on the bed next to me. She was not wearing armor today – instead she had opted for her lighter, cloth and leather garments. It was rare to see her in clothing that wasn't so bulky. "Want to talk about it?"

I let it out. "I feel useless. When we set out to find HEPHAESTUS, I thought that maybe, just _maybe_ I had found a purpose here. But the other systems…you don't even need me there for that." I half-shrugged. "I can't fight, can't defend myself. It's _more_ dangerous for you to take me along to get the subcores than if I were to just stay behind. You had to risk your life to come get me in Maker's End. And when we met Heph. A-and…" My voice cracked. I wanted to cry. "I just-if I can't do any of that, if I can't help you, then what the hell am I doing here? And I can't g-go home because I don't _have_ a home to go back to because we - my…people - destroyed it and now _you_ have to put things back together and I can't even fucking help with _that_!" I sniffed and wiped at my eyes a bit. "So, no. I'm not okay."

Aloy was quiet for a good ten seconds or so. She surprised me by taking my hand in hers. "Becks, when you first offered to help, I wanted to tell you no. I told you – I've never been very good at asking for help or receiving it. But when you told me you could talk to HEPHAESTUS, and when you actually did it…Becks, that was incredible." She looked straight into my eyes and held my gaze, despite my wanting to look away. " _You're_ incredible. You didn't ask for any of this and you _still_ offered to help me. You watched your world be destroyed and you're trying to fix the mistakes others made. You've risked your life more than once trying to help me. You've shown me things from your world that I would have never been able to experience without you." She gave my hand a squeeze. "I agreed to help Talanah because it would take us by where we found you. Your home, Becks. I…" She shifted a bit, looking almost…guilty? "When we found you, I was just concerned with the next part of _my_ mission. I should have-I should have asked if you wanted to give your family a…a proper sendoff." She hung her head. "I'm sorry."

 _Oh._ The tears I had been pushing back won out as a few trickled down my cheek. I put my hand on Aloy's shoulder. "I would like that very much, if you would be willing to take me back there."

Aloy nodded vigorously. "Of course. We can head there tomorrow if you want."

"But what about MINERVA?"

"We can take care of it on the way," she said. "AETHER is just to the north of here as well, in the cliffs."

"I…" I felt stupid of course. But I could understand why Aloy felt guilty. Seeing my family again and my house and…everything. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But I was grateful that Aloy wanted to do it. "Thank you. I mean…yeah, thank you, Aloy."

Aloy's somber mood dissipated as she grinned at me. "Not a fan of Talanah, hm?"

I gave a short laugh. "Not really. She keeps flirting with you."

I don't think I'd ever seen Aloy laugh so hard before. I was kind of offended at first but apparently, she thought the very notion of Talanah flirting with her was fucking hilarious. It took a few minutes for her to catch her breath so that she could explain. "Talanah was my mentor for a bit. I never had an older sibling, Becks," she explained, "but she's like an…older sister to me."

 _Oh. Oops._ "I'm…sorry. I feel stupid and petty, now."

But Aloy shook her head and shifted so that she was facing me. She put her free hand on my hip. "Don't. I probably would have felt the same way."

"You're just saying that so I don't feel like an idiot as much."

She smirked. "Maybe." She adjusted the hand on my hip so that she was softly holding on to me and her smirk vanished, leaving the same intense stare that I had caught her giving me on several occasions.

"What?" I asked, getting a little impatient. "You keep… _doing_ that. Do I have something on my face?" I felt bad at first – I thought maybe I had made Aloy uncomfortable. But she just shook her head and I noticed the dusting of freckles under her eyes were accented by the tinge of pink that had spread across her face.

"N-no. Um, you're very pretty. It's hard not to notice."

 _Oh. Certainly_ not _the answer I expected._ "I…thanks. I would tell you the same, but I think you already know how I feel about you. At least, I hope you do." _Super smooth, Becks._

"I do." She leaned in and gave me a small kiss on the cheek. She didn't stop there, though. Her lips hovered near my cheek afterwards for a moment before she slowly began tracing her way down my jawline, approaching my neck. The mere _presence_ of her breath ghosting over my skin left me panting. Her hold on my hip tightened.

"Aloy," I breathed. I'm not sure why I said her name. Whether it was to acknowledge her or let her know that I was _very_ okay with what she was doing to me – I have no idea. The increasingly familiar feeling in my lower stomach came roaring back as Aloy finally arrived at my neck, her mouth moving toward the side and to the top of my collarbone where she startled me by biting down lightly.

Overwhelmed by the odd but addicting blend of pain and pleasure, I let out a strangled whimper – certainly not a sound I had ever heard myself make. Aloy pulled away and met my eyes again with hooded hazel ones of her own. The room suddenly felt a lot warmer.

 _So much for inexperience. The hell did she learn_ that _?!_

"I…Becks," she whispered. Her voice was noticeably rougher than usual. She glanced down at what little space between us was left. "Do you-I mean, can we-,"

I didn't give her a chance to finish. I pushed forward and into her, capturing her lips in mine and kissed her - every ounce of desire I had for her fueling the kiss. _I'm not useless. I_ can _help. She wants me here. With her._ I'd never felt this way about _anyone_ before. I had no fucking idea what I was doing, but I knew that I wanted _her._ No. _Needed_ her.

I wanted a purpose here. I knew there was one for me. Jenna saw this world as an ending – an interruption to the way things should be. I disagreed. This was a new start, a second chance, and I wasn't going to let anything pass me by this time. No more missed chances.

While I was (for whatever fucking reason) lost in my thoughts, Aloy surprised me again by pushing me gently back onto the bed. As soon as my head touched the pillow, she climbed on top of me – one leg between mine and her other straddling my thigh. My skin was on fire – her weight solid, but not heavy or uncomfortable – I felt _safe_ underneath her. Her braids fell forward as she began kissing me again, shutting out my peripheral vision and blinding me to everything that wasn't _her._

I shifted my body to get more comfortable, moving the leg she was straddling up a bit. Her breath hitched as she moaned into my mouth.

 _Oh._ I did it again. And again. Watching, feeling in wonder as well as a bit smug that I could get her to make that sound. At some point, Aloy caught on and reciprocated, pushing her knee into my center. I closed my eyes and gasped at the sensation, my lips coming undone from hers.

She moved her mouth to my ear, nuzzling the side of my head as she spoke, her voice low and something else that I had never heard from her before. _Hunger._

"That?"

I opened my eyes slightly. Unable to come up with the words. I was moving on my own, almost on autopilot. She had stopped though – _why?_

"Becks? This is okay?"

 _Oh, she actually wants an answer._ "I-yes. J-just- _please_ , Aloy." _Hopefully she can translate that._

I thought I heard her giggle but I was beyond caring at that point. She used her arms to push herself forward to be even closer to me, if that was even possible, and returned to kissing me – her tongue darting in and out of my mouth as she rolled her hips into me again and again. Our breathing was shallow and rapid – slightly out of sync and yet uniform enough that I'd never felt closer to her.

 _Something._ A different, coiling…thing. It was familiar, but to have this with another person was something else entirely.

"Aloy." This was too much – I was more than ready, but I didn't want it to end this way. Aloy froze - pushed herself up partially so that her weight rested on her arms before looking down at me.

"You're all right? D-do you want me to stop?" _Never._

I reached up and tugged at her tunic. "This…can it not be here?"

She gave me a puzzled stare, tilting her head for a moment before I think it clicked for her. "Oh. Um…yes!" Cleared her throat. "Yes." She sat upright before reaching down to the base of her tunic and pulling it up and over her head in a single movement.

 _Wow._ Undergarments followed. I stared in awe at her. I had spent years around other athletes and not one of them could even come close to how _stunning_ Aloy's body was.

She must have noticed me staring like a drooling idiot because she said something. "A-are you okay?"

I smiled as I was taken out of my trance. "How many times are you going to ask me that tonight?"

She didn't return the smile, though – that intense focus never faltering. "As many times as I have to."

"I'm fine, Aloy," I insisted, continuing to admire her. "More than fine, actually. Y-you're beautiful." I could barely get the last word out without blushing furiously.

She said nothing and instead took the liberty of unfastening the hooks of my own shirt, kissing me sporadically as she worked. I watched with great interest – I'd only seen her this focused when she was attending to her bow or spear or when I'd seen her in combat. It was flattering to know that she was directing that focus _at_ me.

 _...that coiling again…_

Things started to become a blur from then on. At some point, Aloy helped me out of my own boots, pants and finally underwear, before working on her own. Both sets of clothing were carelessly tossed to the floor. The fire downstairs cast soft shadows across Aloy's face and body while she crawled back over me – resting her weight on me again as I gasped at the warm and sudden contact, a wave of desire sweeping over me. I reached around and clung to her freckled shoulders, feeling the strong muscles in her back tense and untense. "I'm…still okay," I whispered as I used my hands to explore the well-defined contours of her body. I knew she would ask again so might as well let her know.

She sighed, a sigh of relief maybe? _Hard to tell._ "I-I need you," was all she uttered.

It would have been fucking adorable if I wasn't so turned on right then. You'd think I'd be nervous, and I was – nervous as hell – but the nerves were easily silenced by how badly I wanted Aloy. "You have me."

Aloy must have taken this as a sign to keep going. She bent down and began kissing my neck again, biting down again in some places – a few times so hard that I would cry out involuntarily and it would take me a second or so to catch my breath before she would continue. She turned her gaze to my breasts, softly placing her lips over one of them and running her tongue over the tip with such firmness that I thought I would lose it right there. With her holding me down, the only thing I managed to do was let my nails rake down her back – the sound of her moaning sending chills down my spine and heating the air around us even further.

She suddenly shifted. "Becks…"

 _Oh, fuck._

Her hand settled, giving me time to get used to her being there. I gasped again, looking around wildly while trying to sort out the sensations I was experiencing. I began to hyperventilate. If I wasn't showing how nervous I was before, I sure as fuck was now.

But Aloy leaned in and kissed me on my forehead. "Becks."

I swallowed hard. "S-still okay. You've…you've done this before?"

She shook her head. "No. You?"

"Never."

Aloy bit her lip. "I don't want to hurt you. I've heard-,"

I silenced her with a kiss. We stayed like that for a while before I pulled away. The world was beginning to spin again. "You won't. I-I trust you. I want this, Aloy. I want _you_." It was cheesy and I didn't care. It was the truth.

A light graze. _Fuck._ Then a stroke. And another. Taking me apart, piece by piece. She shifted again. Moved on top of me, taking her own pleasure that I was more than happy to give. I'd never desired anything so badly.

She stopped – her hand moving lower. Hazel eyes met mine, silently asking for permission.

 _Aloy._ She gently pushed one finger in, her eyes never leaving mine. My breathing quickened and I clung to her as tight as I could.

"Aloy," I whispered. It was overwhelming and new and a little scary but mostly it was just _wonderful._ She gave a few gentle thrusts before pulling out. Prepared me with our deepest kiss yet before pushing two fingers in.

The slightest stretch. _Oh, fuck._ I yelled Aloy's name – muffled with her mouth on mine. She resumed thrusting into me, moving fluidly with me while the room gradually grew darker as the last of the embers in the fire began to die. I heard her moans and whimpers but they were far away. No experience? This girl was fucking magical and she couldn't convince me otherwise.

I wanted to say more – _tell_ her more. Tell her everything I thought about this, about her, about how much I-

 _Too much._ I couldn't hold back anymore – a sharp jolt of energy slammed into me, breaking me apart as I screamed into her mouth. My body went slack, melting as Aloy took me into her strong arms and held me against her with such force that I thought I would never get air back into my lungs again. A ragged sob tore from her lips. My name. She stiffened on top of me before we both came crashing back down to reality.

Aloy lie on top of me, the two of us struggling in the darkness to catch our breaths. She suddenly seemed to weigh twice as much as before. I gave her chest a gentle push and she quickly understood and rolled off of me and onto her back, her eyes wide and her body covered in sweat. Somehow, several of her braids had come undone, the result being that her hair was a wilder mess than ever. She opened her arms to me. It took most of my remaining strength but I was able to reposition myself so that I was resting on my side – my head on her chest. Using my free arm, I ran my hand across her breasts and stomach, grinning at how her breathing shifted so suddenly with each of my movements.

She breathed in sharply. "I-I think I need a minute. Or five."

I gave a tired laugh and stopped my teasing before kissing her. Physically, I was exhausted but mentally I wanted to run up and down the streets of Meridian shouting about how fucking happy I was right then. There was _more_ – I wanted to say it. Wanted to tell her, but it was still the heat of the moment and even in that foggy state I knew that if I were to do it, I'd want it to still come out as true in a different situation as it would right now. It was difficult to get my mind around the concept, so I opted to get closer to Aloy and get more comfortable instead.

"So…are you okay?" I thought I heard traces of teasing in her voice, but her expression hid it well.

 _I should start keeping count for every time she asks me that._ "I'm g-good."

She began running her fingers through my hair, which no doubt had also become a tangle mess during our activities. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

I shook my head and nuzzled into her further. "Not at all. You were…incredible."

The darkness kept me from seeing her face, but I was fairly sure there was a reaction to my comment because she shifted again. "I-um…I'm glad."

"I'm sorry I left during dinner like that." It was stupid time to say that, but the haze was lifting, and I still felt like kind of an ass for my behavior.

Aloy exhaled. "You could have just asked me about this if that's what you _really_ wanted instead of leaving."

I gave her a playful slap on her arm. "Screw you. I still think she flirts too much with you."

She chuckled. "You need to meet another friend of mine then."

I shook my head before yawning. I couldn't remember ever feeling so exhausted. Aloy seemed to either take pity on me or share my feelings because she pulled me closer to her and kissed the top of my head. I closed my eyes, the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest matched with her breathing relaxing me and bringing me to the brink of the waking world.

GAIA could wait. Jenna and Ted could wait. I was exactly where I wanted to be.


	17. Shattered

"Becks? Got a minute?"

I nodded to my dad before quickly returning my attention to the Focus. "I gotta call you back, Jenna."

"But…fine. Later, Becks." I could tell Jenna was pissed but given the worried look on Dad's face and the kinds of conversations we'd been having lately, I didn't want to make things worse than they already were for my family.

I hung up. "What's up, Dad?"

Dad looked guilty. "Sorry. Was that Jenna?"

"No, no it's fine," I rushed. I knew he already felt horrible for what had happened, what _was_ happening. I didn't need to add to that because he interrupted a fucking phone call. "Yeah it was."

"How is she?"

I sighed. "As good as you can expect anyone to be about this, honestly. Her parents – they aren't talking to her much about it."

He nodded and walked into the room. "That's a shame. I can understand it, though. You know she's welcome here for as long as the transports still run, right?"

"I know, Dad." I knew he was trying to help in his own way. Ever since he had dropped the news about the glitch, well, things around the house had been pretty depressing. Dennis rarely left his room. Mom tried to hold it together but it wasn't easy. Dad was really the only one who could actually stomach talking about it.

We hadn't heard anything else about Enduring Victory. Most of the major news networks had gone off the air. Dad had ventilation units installed on the house once the air started going to shit – breathable but not really safe without a mask. It was almost surreal but I knew everything that was happening was real. The world was ending – it was _really_ ending, and my future along with it.

At least the one I had planned. Dad had finally told us about the cryo chamber in the basement a few months earlier. It had been a secret project, one that he wouldn't talk about, until one morning he and Mom sat down with Dennis and I and told us. I still wasn't exactly sure how it would work – I mean, being _frozen_ for years until Project Zero Dawn could be launched and destroy all the machines? It sounded crazy and I said as much when Dad told me.

"What's up?" I asked him. He sat down in my desk chair across from the bed where I was.

"Becks…you know if there was a way to stop the machines that it would have been done by now, right?" he said.

 _Huh?_ "Uh…yeah. I know, Dad. But that's why they're working on Zero Dawn, right?"

He nodded. "Right, right. But you know when we come out of cryosleep that…that things are going to be different, right?"

"I know, Dad." _Where is he going with this?_ "I'm okay with that. I just want us to be safe."

Dad folded his hands in his lap. He smiled as he twirled his wedding band around his finger, a habit he always had when he needed to talk about something serious. "You're really something, you know that? I'm proud of you. Your mom is, too."

 _Is he going to cry?_ "Um…thanks, Dad. Are you okay?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, of course, sweetheart." He stood up. "Well, I'd better go see if I can get your brother to leave his room. Dinner will probably be ready soon – don't make your mom have to call for you, please."

"I won't, Dad."

* * *

Soft stroking - a hand on my back. I opened my eyes. It took me a moment to register that I was in bed, was not wearing anything, and that there was someone else in bed with me.

 _Aloy._

The hand was rough, the fingers calloused – _those same fingers?_ I shivered and let out a sharp breath before rolling over slowly. Rays of sunlight peeked through the closed shutters on the windows, the thin beams of light making her eyes look a brilliant amber. The furs were drawn up past her chest – sensible on a chilly morning like this one - covering the parts of her body that I had spent so much time admiring the night before.

 _Should probably say something instead of staring._ "Hi."

She raised an eyebrow. "Hi."

I shifted. A bit sore, understandably. _Totally worth it._ "Erm…did you sleep well?"

Aloy nodded. "I did." She leaned in and kissed me, relighting the fire that had driven me crazy the night before. _Did we really…and then she…_ I won't lie. I felt like a badass for making her feel like that – the sounds she made and how she held me when she-

She pulled away. _Nooo._ I must have been pretty obvious about my disappointment because she quickly explained herself. "We um-we should probably get moving soon."

 _Oh, yeah. Mission and restoring GAIA and all that. And going home._

Home. It seemed weird to think of it like that. I still wasn't quite sure if home was a place or a time – it seemed like both these days. No. This place we were going to wasn't home – it was a building. Just a structure, where I used to live. It wasn't a home anymore.

I nodded and gave her a final quick kiss. "All right. Let me uh…get dressed and-where are my clothes?"

Aloy gave a nod toward the floor. "Somewhere. Mixed up with mine."

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and began rummaging through the pile until I found my clothes. Out of habit, I sniffed them. _They could do with a wash._ We got dressed and grabbed our stuff before heading out the door to go meet Heph outside the city. We would head to the Spire to take care of MINERVA and then to the nearby mesa to the north for AETHER before we made for my old house and then finally going back to Mother's Watch.

So much was running through my mind. I still couldn't believe that last night had really _happened._ As we walked through the bustling streets of Meridian – the morning markets setting up shop for the day - I caught Aloy giving me those quick stares again, only she didn't appear to be trying as hard to hide it – when she _was_ caught, she'd actually smile at me, almost shyly, before returning her focus to the path ahead. As for me, I was finally admitting what I think I had known for a while now.

I was falling for Aloy. I was falling _hard._

This was _nothing_ like what I had felt for Jenna. It was something else entirely – a completely different creature. It calmed me, made me nervous, terrified, overjoyed – all at the same time.

I didn't know where to even _begin_ expressing it. Were there expectations? What did people here do when they though they…found someone? I remembered our conversation from the day before when I was practicing archery. Was I getting ahead of myself? Was she even ready for something that serious? What would something that serious entail? Were we too young? Too new?

One thing was certain. Home was beginning to feel less and less like what I had with my family and more like what I had with Aloy. This wasn't my world – not yet, if it would ever be – but _she_ was quickly becoming my world.

* * *

"Almost there," Aloy announced while pushing through some tall bushes. "It was in a clearing just up ahead."

I followed, my boots crunching down on the dead leaves that had settled on the forest floor, some of them even iced over as the beginnings of winter had started to set in. "These trees weren't here when I lived here. It was all open fields."

Heph walked alongside us. Picking up the subcores at MINERVA and AETHER had been trivial. Well, actually, hiking up a fucking mesa was tiring as hell but I guess it made sense that a system designed to clear up the air would be at a higher altitude. Now all that was left to do was take care of the last subcore in Mother's Watch and head to GAIA Prime in the mountains, where HEPHAESTUS would send machines carrying the parts required to repair GAIA. Then the subcores would be used to reboot her. Aloy and I still had no idea how GAIA would be able to function without HADES or APOLLO but Aloy theorized that if the entire system was able to restore the biosphere without APOLLO, then it could also be repaired without it and HADES. Finding and getting APOLLO from Ted would have to come after rebuilding GAIA. We couldn't have that bastard getting control of the terraforming system.

 _"SYSTEM STILL RECOMMENDS MEDICAL ATTENTION, BECKS."_

I sighed as a blush crept up my neck. _Fucking AI._ "I told you, Heph, I'm not injured."

Heph's blue light blinked. _"THIS UNIT HAS IDENTIFIED BRUISING CONSISTENT WITH BURST BLOOD VESSELS OF THE HUMAN ANATOMY. SYSTEM RECOMMENDS MEDICAL ATTENTION."_

Up ahead, I could hear Aloy laughing quietly. I rolled my eyes. "Heph, they're hickeys. They're not-it's not an injury. I didn't get hurt."

 _"'HICKEY' UNKNOWN. QUERYING. QUERY FOUND. NORTH AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF TWENTY FIRST CENTURY INDICATES 'HICKEY: A SKIN BLEMISH, ESPECIALLY A MARK CAUSED BY A LOVER BITING OR SUCKING THE SKIN'."_

Aloy laughed harder.

 _For fuck's sake._ "Quiet, you." Then to Heph. "Yes, that's what they are, Heph. Can we change the subject now?"

The AI went silent. One blink. Two. " _ALPHA PRIME. AFTER REVIEWING SUPPORTING EVIDENCE, SYSTEM HAS CONCLUDED THAT BECKS HAS ACQUIRED A MATE."_

"I'm aware, HEPHAESTUS," Aloy responded, her laughter finally having died down. She seemed more focused on making sure we were going the right way than explaining to a fucking Watcher the nature of our relationship. "There it is."

Sure enough, we had arrived in the clearing Aloy had spoken of. A field of dead grass was stretched out before us, leading to a dilapidated structure in the distance. The outer walls were mostly gone, the foundation crumbling but a semblance of the house remained. The walls that were still intact had gone black, with dead vines creeping up the sides and over the top where the roof used to be. My house – now a ruin. A ruin of death. I knew what we'd find in the basement. The realness of the situation slammed into me and I found myself pushing back tears again.

A thought occurred to me. "How did you get into the basement? It was sealed."

But Aloy shook her head. "Becks, it was open."

 _What?_ "T-that's not possible. My dad sealed the shit out of that basement so that the swarm couldn't get to us." There was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind – a sort of creeping dread that I couldn't explain.

Aloy put her hand on my arm. "The door was open, Becks." She began leading me toward the house. "A-are you sure you want to do this?"

I nodded. "Y-yeah. Let's go." We crossed the field – walked through the front entrance, just like I had done hundreds of times. The door had rotted away as had much of the doorframe, but if I looked closely I could still recognized parts of my house.

I didn't like this at all. This place was not my house. It was eerie and unsettling. I felt my stomach tighten and then, nausea.

"Becks?" A hand on my back.

I shook my head, blinking a few times. "I'm okay. Can we please go downstairs?"

She nodded. "Of course." She led me to the top of the stairs. I stopped and, out of reflex, looked toward the nearest window. Just an open space now, framed by bent metal, but I could see out to the field and the forest beyond. Blue sky. Animals in the distance. A thousand years ago I had stood there – the world outside on fire. People yelling in agony as they were reduced to fuel for the nightmarish dream of an egotistical maniac.

 _Guilt_. I needed to go downstairs.

Aloy was right – the metal blast door had been deactivated and unsealed, as though one of my family had just gone down there and left the door open. _But that's impossible._ We had all been down there in our cryo tanks. Something didn't feel right.

The long walk. Aloy held my hand as we walked. I had done this once before with my family. Held my mom's hand as we walked to what should have been our salvation. And it was – mine anyway.

A few more paces. We stopped – the cryo tanks in plain view several steps away. One of them was open. _Mine._ The others were sealed shut, dimmed, though I could make out dark figures within each of them. _Dead._ Their bodies. My family. _Dead._

 _Not right._

"Becks." Aloy's voice was shaky. Her hand felt clammy as it gripped mine. I let go of it and stepped forward.

"You didn't-you didn't open the others?"

"The uh, there was no power in them. We didn't want to…didn't want to disturb them." _So much sorrow._ She seemed beyond grief and it wasn't even her family.

I needed to see. "Help me open them."

Without a word, she approached the cryo tanks with me and began to use her spear to pry each of the cases open. I had the urge to look away – to _not_ see the skeletons of my family.

"The power probably went out centuries ago," I reasoned while Aloy worked on the tanks. "Something with the electrical could have gone wrong – m-maybe that's why the door was open." _But mine stayed powered…_

The casings opened. No rush of air. That was the first thing I remembered when I had woken up. _Why?_

"Becks," Aloy croaked.

"But then why would mine have stayed on?" I continued. My throat tightened. The sickening feeling of being watched took root in me, spreading like a disease.

"Becks…you need to come look at this."

I refocused on the opened cryo tanks and took a few steps forward, the most difficult steps I'd taken in my life.

I saw them.

Dad. Mom. Dennis. All dead. Ripped from the earth, without a sound. I nearly threw up.

 _No._

For some reason skeletons would have made me feel better. Put me at ease. I don't know what the logic in that was and didn't care about it making sense in that moment.

"Becks…"

All three of them – their bodies – were mostly intact. As though they had died recently – months ago, not centuries. Their tanks could have malfunctioned right before Aloy found me. But I knew they hadn't.

"These…were opened before yours," Aloy breathed. "Then they were closed again."

"No," I whispered. But I knew she was right as I fell to my knees – realization overlapping with disbelief and horror.

My dad, mom, and brother were all dead. I knew that much and had even accepted it. But not like this. _Not like this._

I broke down, sobbing at the horrible sight before me – my family, dead, each one with a distinct bullet hole in the front of their head.


	18. Inferno

_No._

I stayed on my knees, not caring about how sore they'd be after being on the concrete floor, unable to hold back my wails of sorrow to the world. _Dead._ No, _murdered._ My family had been murdered – their lives snuffed out with a single shot each.

And I had been left alive. _Why?_

My cries echoed against the metal walls of the bunker – repetitive sobs of denial that did nothing to bring comfort or reason to what I was witnessing.

A hand came down on my shoulder. "Becks…"

I shoved it away. Climbed to my feet so that I was facing Aloy – looking her straight in the eyes. "Why?!"

Her eyes were glossy. I didn't care. She had no idea. _No_ idea. "You could have saved them!" I exclaimed.

"Becks, t-they were gone when we got here – I swear to you," she tried. Her voice was broken – she wasn't trying to argue with me. Just telling me how it was.

I still didn't care. _"No!_ You could have- _something_ could have been done. _Look at them!"_ I screamed.

"Becks, I-,"

 _"_ _No!_ Don't _fucking_ say anything. You should have told me when I woke up-,"

She grabbed my shoulders. "I told you what I knew, Becks. I'm-I'm so _sorry_ -,"

I pushed her away. She was much stronger than me, and barely moved, but she released me anyway.

"I'm sorry," she repeated.

I paced near the cryo tanks, a thousand threads of thought running through my mind. Who did this? Why? Why was I spared? The only thing that seemed remotely plausible was that Ted or Jenna had done this – they were the only ones that knew my family was down here. But that made no sense – Ted was friends with my dad, and Jenna loved my family. Neither would gain anything from doing this.

"Becks," Aloy called.

"Go away."

"I-I think you should see this." She sounded hurt, I knew that much, but I didn't care how much she hurt right now. I cared about finding out who had done this so that I could find them and _end_ them. I was not a violent person but if being violent was what it took to get vengeance for my family, then I was more than happy to embrace that.

"What?" I snapped and faced the redhead. She pointed at the floor near my dad's cryo tank. The silver, triangular shape of it was obvious against the dark surface of the floor.

"Dad's Focus." I bent down and picked it up.

"There's a message on it," Aloy said. "I can see it lighting up through my Focus."

I sniffed. "Someone probably tried to leave one for him before the grid went down." I held the device up to my head and put it on. It beeped, the familiar sound of a Focus unlocking – its contents free for me to access.

"Weird. It's letting me in."

"Did your father give others access to his Focus?"

I shook my head. "No." A flashing symbol. "' _Priority Message_ '. Let's see what this is, I guess."

I swiped the confirmation button. The message was a hologram – we watched as it set up in front of us. The quality was shit but it was preserved enough that we could see and understand it. A man stood a few paces away – all too familiar.

"Is that…?"

I nodded. "My dad."

The crunch of interference static prevented us from hearing the first few seconds before the recording stabilized. Dad looked to be talking to someone else.

 ** _"…_** ** _love you so much. I'll see you soon."_** A hiss of air followed by the sound of the metal clamps of a cryo tank locking down. Dad turned to face where I was standing, as though he were talking to me.

 ** _"_** ** _That's all of us, then. Okay, so, this is the uh…the last recording of Robert F. Johnson - …16_** ** _th_** ** _, 2066. This message's intent is to deliver a…a warning. Just under a year ago, I was contacted by Ted Faro. He confirmed what we were all afraid of – that there had been a glitch with the Chariot line of peacekeepers. Our mutual colleague, Elisabet Sobeck, came up with a plan to e-e-e-ensure…life would have another c-c-chance long after…gone."_**

My heart raced. Dad had known about Zero Dawn – what it _really_ was. I glanced over at Aloy and saw she, too, was watching with great interest.

 ** _"…_** ** _few months ago was a-a-a-approached by Ted. Said it was a matter of great importance to the future of humanity. Told me….APOLLO, that our best chance for making sure the s-s-same mistak-k-kes weren't made. I uh…I agreed to help him, if only to get the cryo technology to keep my family safe. The Zero Dawn copies were to be d-d-delete-scrubbed before…but I still feel guilty. Those people after us…if we don't make it through…Ted doesn't know what he's doing. …don't really trust him anymore. I saved a copy…suggest my daughter assist in the more t-t-technical aspects of the reintegration. She has override access to all of my files, codeword: ZETA. It's…absolutely critical that…she is informed about this should anything happen to me. Backup…APOLLO stored on ring. Should be possible to uh…reintegrate with the main system and lock out Omega access. I repeat, it is imperative that we lock out Omega access."_**

"What?" I whispered. This couldn't be true – Dad had sold out humanity's knowledge for the cryo tech? He _knew_ about APOLLO being deleted?

Dad looked straight at me, as though he knew I'd be watching this.

 ** _"_** ** _Rebecca…Becks. If you're w-w-w-watching this…then you know what I've done, and I'm sorry. I'm…sorry for putting this on you…was the only way to save you and your brother. You_** **have** ** _to get APOLLO reintegrated with the system. Your override code should-should work. Use the coordinates attached to this message to find GAIA Prime. That is where the reintegration has to happen. I'm sorry. I only wanted you to be safe. And…I love you."_**

I reached out toward the empty space. "Dad…"

The hologram faded, leaving me alone with Aloy once more. We stood there, with only the sound of my heavy breathing to fill the silence. I turned to her, unsure of what to say. We had destroyed the world and then nearly destroyed it again. My dad had been part of that and for what? To save a few while an entire new civilization stayed ignorant at the mercy of a psychopath?

"His ring," Aloy breathed.

I snapped out of my trance. I looked over at my dad's body. "It's missing." I kicked the wall in anger. " _Fuck!"_

"Becks-,"

I remembered the wedding ring around Ted's finger. "I _knew_ that fucker wasn't married."

"What?" Aloy seemed bewildered by everything that was happening right now.

"Ted had a ring around his finger. It was my dad's, it had to be _._ It has APOLLO on it."

"Then where's Ted's original copy?"

I threw my hands up. "I don't know! I don't…" My thoughts stopped and all I could think about was my dad, my mom, Dennis…how they had been murdered for…for this _bullshit._ I sat on the floor again and buried my face in my hands. "I just don't understand _why?!"_

Aloy put her hand on my back and lightly rubbed it. I knew she was trying to comfort me but I was shut down to any kind of comfort at that moment. I just wanted answers. I just wanted my family back. I didn't care about any of the other crap – not GAIA, not APOLLO, not Ted or Jenna – I just wanted my family to be alive and well and to fight with Dennis again and argue with Mom about something stupid and see Dad happy and making terrible jokes.

A mechanical whirring. _"ALPHA PRIME. SYSTEM DETECTS LIFEFORMS APPROACHING."_

"Not now, HEPHAEST-what?" Aloy withdrew her hand from my back and turned to face the Watcher.

Heph's light changed from blue to yellow, glowing fiercely at us. _"SYSTEM DETECTS-,"_ The Watcher clicked several times and made a low, grinding noise – almost as though it were broken.

"Heph?" I asked while wiping my eyes.

The Watcher's light changed again – now undeniably red.

 _Shit._ "Heph?!" I exchanged worried glances with Aloy.

The arrow, a blur of fire, soared past the Watcher and clipped my shoulder – hot metal searing into my skin and sending white hot pain spreading throughout my arm. I screamed in pain and panic as Aloy quickly came to her senses and used her hands to put out the flames that had lit on my clothes.

"You _idiot!_ The other one!" _Eclipse._ A whole group of them ran toward us from the other side of the bunker.

I looked up at Aloy. She seemed just as scared as I was. "W-what do we do?" I asked.

More whirring, as though something was revving up. We both turned our gazes to Heph. The Watcher had gone completely hostile – it took a few steps back before charging at us by leaping into the air.

" _Move!"_ Aloy yelled and grabbed me around my waist before pulling me out of harm's way. The Watcher barely missed us and crashed onto the ground. Aloy grabbed her spear and shoved the blade into the Watcher's eye, shutting it down permanently.

Another arrow flew by, then another – all impaling themselves into the bodies of my family.

" _No!"_ I tried to get to the tanks, see if I could put out the flames before it was too late. But Aloy grabbed my shirt and pulled me back toward her. "We need to leave, _now_!" she shouted.

There was only one way out, and it was through a small army of Eclipse fighters.

"Stay behind me!" Aloy commanded as she readied her bow and began firing at the men in front of us. With our back against the flames, we moved forward, with Aloy taking out a few fighters at a time. I think I was screaming. Whether it was in pain or fear, I don't remember. I began coughing on thick, black smoke.

 _Almost there._ I could see the sunlight creeping in from the entrance up ahead. A large, armored man stood between us and freedom. He held a large machine gun in his arms.

"Give us the girl and we'll all walk away from this."

Aloy tensed and nocked two more arrows in her bow. Before the man could fire, she let loose her arrows – hitting him between the eyes. I screamed again. _All this death._ I needed to get out of there. The bodies of my family, of these men – Aloy _killing_ other human beings right before my eyes – the hot ashes that burned my face and peppered my hair, stinging my scalp as the nausea that had built up threatened to take me down right there.

"Aloy…" I moaned.

She turned back and grabbed my arm. "We have to go. _Now!"_ Practically dragging me, she led me out of the basement and upstairs to the first floor of my house, which was already coming down from the flames that ate away at what was left of its structure.

"There! Get them!" someone yelled, followed by a cacophony of shouts in the distance. There was a mechanical roar behind us. A group of machines, all Sawtooths or similar began charging at us – their lights all an unmistakable bright red.

She tightened her grip on my arm. "This way!" she cried, pulling me toward the opposite direction as we began to make our way back into the thickness of the forest, arrows and bullets hailing down all around us.

I tripped and skidded on the dirt, grunting in pain as my injured shoulder scraped against the tiny rocks on the ground.

"Up! _Up!_ Come on, Becks!" Aloy lifted me up as I tried to regain my footing, but not before she yanked back suddenly, hissing in pain and holding her upper arm.

"Aloy!"

"I'm…fine! Go, _now_!" We took off again, my vision blurry from the tears that still came – whether from grief, agony, or the heat of the fire I wasn't sure.

 _Right behind us…_

"Don't look back!"

I looked straight ahead – the trees rushing past us and the path ahead quickly coming to…an end?

 _Fuck._

"Aloy!"

"I see it! H-hang on!" She fished out her rope as I grabbed her shirt and put my arm around her waist, our enemies right on our tail.

We leapt.

I watched, terrified, as Aloy gritted her teeth and flung the rope above us, the end of it just barely catching on an overgrown tree root above. We plummeted – a stream surrounded by tall grasses on the ground below - the sensation of having no control over my footing still foreign to me.

The rope tightened and Aloy yelled out in pain as her injured arm couldn't support our weight. We began to fall faster. I wrapped my arms around Aloy as tight as I could and closed my eyes, sure that we wouldn't stop in time.

Somehow, she managed to grab the rope again and slow us down enough that we hit the water without dying. She maneuvered her body so that she hit the water first, shielding my fall and sending us both underwater.

She grabbed my wrist before I had time to realize what had happened, and pulled me to the surface quickly. The first breath stung as water rushed up my nose and I gasped and sputtered for a good few minutes while crawling out of the water, struggling to catch my breath and recover.

We were safe. Injured and beaten. But safe.

Aloy reached out to me. She was in obvious pain but she didn't seem to care. "Becks…"

Bruised, bleeding, burned, and beyond grief, my brain went into overdrive and I swung angrily at her, hitting her in the chest with my fist. " _No!"_ I screamed. Again. And again. Aloy just looked at me, her eyes filled with the same grief and sadness that I had seen earlier when we discovered my family's bodies. She put her hands up and just let me hit her. It was wrong and I didn't care.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"You could have saved them!" I yelled. _Punch._ "Why?! They didn't do anything to deserve this!" _Punch._ All this…wasted. Everything my parents had done…for nothing. APOLLO was gone. Heph was gone. GAIA would be Ted's soon. All of this was for nothing. I hadn't asked for any of this. Dennis hadn't asked for any of this either and he was murdered for it. Mom would never get to see what had happened – how the world had changed – everything she had lived for reduced to death and fire. _Punch._ And Dad… _fuck_ him. Fuck him and Faro and Sobeck and all of those people who thought they could play god with innocent people's lives.

 _I'm just a fucking tool to fix their mistakes._

I stopped mid-swing. Looked back at Aloy. Her face was caked in ash and dust – cleaner lines visible where the tears fell; were _still_ falling. Her lower lip trembled, as though she was trying to hold back telling me what I already knew.

They were gone – taken from me in the worst way possible. And it wasn't her fault. It wasn't my fault. But it was the cold, harsh reality of the world I was living in. This was my world now – the damp ashes of the old one still coating my skin and hair, but like the old world, soon to be washed away forever.

I collapsed and Aloy took me into her waiting arms. I cried into her chest, my sobs quieting as she murmured apologies into my ear while stroking my hair. We sat on the grass together, hidden from sight just in case the Eclipse made it this way. The sun began to set. It felt like we were there for hours (when in reality it was probably half an hour) – her just holding me as I nearly cried myself to sleep.

She shook me before I could actually doze off. "I need to see your shoulder."

I sniffed and nodded. My head ached and my entire body was sore from our ordeal. I feebly tried to push down my sleeve but couldn't find the strength. Aloy finally assisted me and tore off part of my sleeve. I yelped in pain – the wound had dried onto the fabric of the sleeve.

"I'm sorry – I don't want it to get infected," she said softly. I glanced at the wound and was immediately sorry that I had. The tip of the flaming arrow had cut into my shoulder, the fire having burned the skin around it. Dried blood mixed with fresh blood oozed around it and for the first time, it actually began to _hurt_.

"Fucking shit," I gasped.

Aloy exhaled sharply and procured some small berries from one of her pouches before mashing them up in her hand. "This…is going to hurt, Becks."

I sniffed. "Just do it. I don't want my arm falling off."

Aloy used a cloth and the water to clean off the wound, which made me grit my teeth but wasn't completely unbearable.

She handed me a piece of leather. "Bite on this."

"Why?"

"Because this is going to make you wish your arm would fall off." I took the leather, and did as she instructed. I watched as Aloy took my arm in one hand and the berries in the other and pressed them into the cut. No warning, nothing. I screamed into the leather, nearly dropping it from my mouth as fresh tears came forth. It was like someone had lit my shoulder on fire all over again.

"There. You did great, Becks." Aloy wrapped up my shoulder before closing her pouch. "You're lucky it missed you."

"T-that was a miss?" I was still struggling to compose myself.

"Had the arrow gone in, it would have been much, much worse," she explained.

 _Wait._ I remembered something. The forest – when she was pulling me up from the ground. "Aloy, your arm!"

Aloy glanced at her armor-covered arm. "Oh. That. I'm fine, Becks. Stray bullet."

I stared at her in disbelief. "Aloy, you got _shot_!"

She smirked and unfastened the shoulder piece of her armor. There was no bullet hole, no blood. The normally fair skin was swollen and nearly blue but was otherwise fine. "Shield Weaver armor. Protects me from pretty much everything."

I reached out and gingerly touched her skin. "H-how?"

"It's Metal World technology. Hurts like hell, though," she finished with a short laugh.

 _Tech._ "HEPHAESTUS! What happened? And how did they find us?"

Aloy shook her head. "I don't know. It was like…like it wasn't him anymore."

There was only one possibility I could think of. "Aloy," I said as she helped me to my feet. We began walking. My arm still hurt like a bitch, but not as badly as it had minutes ago. "I think my Focus was bugged. When I was unconscious – Ted must have done something to it. If Heph uploaded all the data from it when it found the pieces…"

"We have to get to GAIA Prime," Aloy urged. "If Ted has control of HEPHAESTUS, then he could be trying to rebuild the main core right now."

"He doesn't have the subcores. He'll need those before he can get GAIA running."

"If he has HEPHAESTUS then it's only a matter of time before he interfaces with the other subsystems and gets new ones," she pointed out.

I nodded. "We don't have all the subcores though and without Heph we can't get ELEUTHIA!"

Aloy sighed. Her face was set in determination, something I hadn't seen from her in far too long. "Hopefully we have enough, then. The sooner we get to GAIA Prime the sooner we can take control of it."

"Wait!" I grabbed her hand to stop her. "We're both injured. If Ted has control of Heph then he has a fucking army _plus_ a robot army _and_ a way to rebuild the system. We can't do this alone."

Aloy paused. Seconds later, that trademark smile of hers crept onto her face. "I've made a few friends. I think I know who we can get to help us."

I looked up at her. "My parents…my brother – I want to find out who did this and _end_ them, Aloy."

She squeezed my hand before nodding. "We will."


	19. Gathering Allies

"Let me make sure I understand. A man, a _living_ relic of the Metal World, the one who was responsible for its downfall, has control of an army of machines?"

Aloy gave a deep nod. "That's correct."

"And you need me to send out Meridian's army to the Bitter Climb, a days long journey from the city, because…you need time?"

It was a lot to dump on Sun King Avad, and yeah, if I had been told what Aloy had just explained to him out of context, I would have given her that same dubious look.

We had arrived back in Meridian that morning. Aloy had immediately requested to see the king (which, I guess she can do because she's saved his ass a few times now from what I understand) and Erend was happy to set up an audience for us. We had done a quick scan of Talanah's men before heading back but had found nothing – Aloy promised we'd return to try again but not before we take care of our mission. Which made sense, you know, since the fate of the world kind of relied on the outcome of this mission.

Now we stood at the top of the palace, overlooking the bronze city, as Aloy tried to convince Avad to loan us his army. It could have been going better.

"Yes, I need time and your trust," Aloy explained. "This man would use these machines to conquer the world. I just need your army to hold his machines at bay until I can shut them down."

"Assuming you _can_ shut them down," the king's advisor, some guy named Blameless Marad chimed in.

Avad took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's….a tall order, Aloy, one I'm afraid I'm going to have to reject. If you cannot shut down the machines, Meridian needs protection here. Our army is still not at its full strength from the last battle we fought and we need as many people as possible guarding the mesa."

 _Really? After everything Aloy's done for these idiots?_ "If we don't stop this man _now_ , your army won't stand a chance against him if he comes here." I didn't care that I was speaking to a king. He wasn't my fucking king and if anything, he seemed like a short-sighted jerk.

The guards surrounding Avad took a step forward. Avad's lips held in a firm, straight line and the atmosphere on the balcony immediately tensed.

"Becks, I've got this," Aloy said quietly and placed a hand on my arm. Then to Avad, "I've never given you reason to believe that I'm wrong. If there is anything you can do to help, we would be grateful."

Avad looked at me, his dark eyes betraying an almost childlike curiosity. "Erend," he finally spoke. The captain stood straight at attention when his name was called.

"The Vanguard could surely help with a matter such as this, yes?" Avad asked.

Erend nodded. "Certainly, Your Highness." He took a moment to catch my gaze when the king wasn't looking and winked at me. I couldn't hold back a small smile.

"Then it is settled," the king continued. "Aloy, you have your army. May they serve you well. I will say that I hope you are wrong about these machines and that they are not under the control of any one man, let alone a misguided one. Light help us if they are."

* * *

"Well, that was disappointing." I kicked off my boots before collapsing on the bed.

"He's trying to protect his people. I'd be hesitant, too." Aloy hung up her pack and took a seat next to me. "Let me see your shoulder."

I shrugged. "It's fine. I don't even feel it anymore."

"And that's great, but I still need to see it," she said, clearly not in the mood to put up with my stubbornness.

I huffed. "Fine." I pulled off my shirt so that it would be easier and faster for her to examine the wound. The berries she had put into the cut and on the burn had actually done wonders at healing it quickly. It was nothing compared to the kind of treatment available back home but then again, back home I wouldn't have been shot by a flaming arrow.

After a minute or so, Aloy nodded, apparently satisfied. "It's healing well. It'll scar, of course, but there's no infection."

"Cool. And my arm won't fall off."

She chuckled, then looked rather relieved. "Yes, exactly." Her gaze went from my shoulder to the rest of me, and she sort of just sat there, staring.

"Uh…you all right?" I asked.

Aloy shook her head, as though coming out of a trance. "Hm? Oh, sorry. You can um…put your shirt back on now if you want."

 _Never change._ I was still reeling from our encounter with the Eclipse at my old house and learning the terrible truth about my dad and what he had been involved in. But I knew that my family's deaths weren't Aloy's fault. I knew I had acted out and she had let me take my anger and frustration out on her without asking for anything, not even an apology in return. She hadn't treated me as though I were a delicate flower, either – only a day after we left the forest she spent a few hours picking up where Erend left off with my spear training. I still sucked but by the end of the session I could almost hold my own without tripping over my own feet when sparring with her. I knew she had lost someone close to her – her guardian I believe, but she only spoke of him briefly when she had told me her story when we met. What if _focus_ was her way of dealing with loss? I wanted to ask but I didn't know if that would be too difficult or invasive for her to talk about.

I definitely didn't want her to pull away from me, though. "Aloy…it's okay. I won't break."

She rubbed the back of her neck, a reddish tint slowly spreading throughout her face. "I-I know that."

"Hey." I took her hand and held it against my chest. I heard her exhale when her hand came in contact with my skin. "I'm sorry if I've pushed you away these last few days."

But Aloy stopped me before I could say anything else. "No." She shook her head. "Becks, what happened back there was…you deserve better. You don't deserve to be dealing with any of this. You should be living your life with your parents and your brother."

I moved closer to her, pressing myself against her. As if by instinct, she wrapped her arms around me and held me close, her lips against my temple. "I want to find out who did this and why."

"And we will. I promise you – we will, Becks." She squeezed me, as though to strengthen her pledge.

"It was Ted – I _know_ it. He knew Dad wasn't onboard with his stupid plan. But if that's true," I mused, "then why keep me alive, too? Why not open my cryo tank as well?"

"Ted has override access to the system," Aloy said. "Maybe he thought he could integrate APOLLO without you and kept you around just in case."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. So, I'm basically alive because it was convenient."

Aloy gave a quiet laugh, shaking the bed a little. "You said it, not me."

I turned my head to respond with some smartass remark and stopped when we locked eyes. Aloy's hand brushed against my bare midriff, her eyes averting mine for just a moment as I became very aware that I still was not wearing a shirt. Her warm breath mingled with mine, and that was all I needed to lean in and kiss her.

Too often since I woke up from cryo did I feel like I had no power over my own life – over what direction _I_ wanted to take. There was always some other force driving what needed to be done, whether it was an apocalypse, GAIA, Heph, Ted, the Eclipse. And then Aloy and I had become… _us._ Our first time together had been nothing short of incredible.

And then we had to go. Go to get the subcores. Go to the ruins of my old house, where I was left powerless once again. Go to Meridian _again,_ instead of having time to say goodbye to my family.

And I was fucking sick of it. Sick of being powerless. If I was going to be here, I wanted to decide _my_ future.

Aloy froze for a moment, but once she recovered she reciprocated the kiss, pulling away just long enough to say my name. I ignored her and moved in again, this time more aggressively – pushing my tongue into her mouth and my teeth against her lips while tugging at her tunic.

"I…B-Becks, I have to go to the Lodge, still. We h-have to talk to more people and-," she mumbled between kisses, her efforts to stop me half-hearted at most.

I paused just long enough to hover near her ear. "Do you want to stop?" A fire like I'd never experienced before ignited deep within me. I wanted her _now._

"N-not really," she confessed, already out of breath – her chest heaving against me as she held on to my sides.

Grinning, I gave her a quick kiss on the lips before moving down to her neck. My hand moved down to her pants, easily slipping under the waistband and beneath. She let out a deep moan – if I had _known_ how amazing she'd feel…

A loud knock on the door startled us both.

"Ugh, fuck," I grumbled, reluctantly pulling my hand out from Aloy's pants.

Aloy laughed. "I wish." She took a moment to regulate her breathing again before jumping off the bed to answer the door. I sighed and put my shirt back on before following her down the stairs, barely arriving at the bottom when Aloy opened the door.

The woman in the doorway was tall – very tall. Her dark skin complemented the color of whatever variety of Carja armor that I'd never seen before, though it yet another model where whoever designed it apparently forgot to do anything about the wearer's torso, which was completely exposed (though it was showing off some pretty impressive abs – seriously, how do you even _get_ that?). She held herself in a way that radiated such confidence that she appeared almost untouchable.

The woman greeted Aloy with a smug grin. "We meet again, little huntress. You called?"

Talanah stood next to her, arms crossed, beaming at Aloy.

Aloy gaped at the women for a good few seconds before coming to her senses and saying something. "Va-Vanasha? Talanah, I was just about to head to the Lodge and find you-,"

Vanasha stepped into the house. "Relax. Uthid told me about your request to Sun King Avad. I thought I could lend a hand."

"Your Oseram friend has a big mouth as well," Talanah added as she followed. Both went silent upon seeing me. "Couldn't just let my Thrush go out there alone, now could I?"

Vanasha studied me before giving Aloy a knowing smile. "Ah, you have company. Introduce us to your…friend, Aloy."

"Hi, Becks!" Talanah waved.

I gave an awkward wave. _Kill me now. Why do all of her friends have to be fucking_ superheroes _?_

"'Becks', hmm?" Vanasha gave me a nod that seemed like…approval? She turned back to Aloy. "She's cute."

I tried not to look peeved. _I'll show you 'cute'…washboard lady._ Ugh. I couldn't even _think_ of a good insult.

Aloy laughed nervously, turning redder by the minute. _Oh, for fuck's sake._ "I um…your help is appreciated. We need to make for the Bitter Climb as soon as possible."

" _That_ place? Of course, you do," Vanasha said. "You never fail to impress with your ambitions, my dear."

"Several Hawks have volunteered as well," Talanah said. "If there's a trophy to be claimed, the Lodge will be there."

"We'll make for Mother's Watch tomorrow," Aloy told them. "Meet us there."

"The Nora lands? Will they even let us in?" Talanah asked.

Aloy nodded. "Trust me, they will. I'll make sure of it."

"As you would have it, little huntress," Vanasha declared, her hands on her hips. "Well, then. I should get back to Uthid – tell him what's going on."

"And I've got a group of Hawks to brief."

"I-thank you. Both of you," Aloy said, looking at the two women.

"Oh, of course, my friend," Vanasha exclaimed and placed a hand on Aloy's shoulder. "Now, we should let you two get back to whatever it was you were doing that we so rudely interrupted!" She winked at me. I had to look away.

When they had finally left, Aloy closed the door and locked it once more before turning around to face me. She pushed a few braids out of her face. "Told you I'd get us help."

I raised my eyebrows, unamused. "'Little huntress'?"

She smiled. "It's a long story."

"She's worse than Talanah."

Aloy shook her head as though _I_ was the one being ridiculous. "Not everyone in Meridian is out to flirt with me, Becks."

"Nope. Just the ones that you keep making us hang out with," I quipped, the two of us laughing together for a bit. She approached me and took my hands in hers. "We can leave in the morning. Mother's Watch has a few more friends I think we can call upon to help us. We can rest there before we head to the Bitter Climb," she said. "No doubt Ted's already started using HEPHAESTUS to rebuild GAIA. All he needs are the subcores."

The heat from earlier had long since dissipated and the heaviness of the situation began to feel real again. "Aloy, we _can't_ let him get near the main core when we reboot it."

"I know." Her voice was low and solemn. "We'll figure something out."

I looked up at her. "And Jenna? I-I know she's not…completely innocent but, if she can be saved, I owe it to her to at least try."

Aloy nodded before taking me into her arms and held me. "We'll figure this out, Becks. We've come too far to give up now."

I leaned into her hold, hoping with every inch of my being that she was right.


	20. Unbreakable

I'm sure that had I been _anyone else_ that I would have been gently woken up by the soothing sounds of the forest at dawn. But no. Not me. _I_ had to get the fucking turkey walking around outside Aloy's cabin chirping and gobbling its soul out for me right by the goddamned window.

 _I'm going to kill it._ It could have been my first kill. I loved animals but seriously, fuck this turkey. I was exhausted from our trip to Mother's Watch. Aloy and I, along with Erend, his Vanguard, Vanasha, Talanah, and several of the hunters from the Lodge had left Meridian days earlier and had arrived in the Embrace late at night. The Nora were overjoyed to have their "anointed" return to them, though I think they were less happy about letting outsiders into their lands. Still, Aloy was able to convince them through Matriarch Teersa that there was a matter of great importance we needed to discuss with the Nora, particularly their war-chief.

A matter that could be discussed _later_ \- over dinner. _Right now, I just want to sleep._

" _GOBBLE!"_

"Annnd I guess I'm up," I grumbled and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I looked over at the empty space next to me on the bed. Aloy was gone, as were her weapons that she normally kept propped up near the door. _Probably went hunting. Too bad she couldn't take care of the damn turkey while she was out._

I crawled out of bed, shivering the entire time. Winter was very, _very_ noticeable here. The snow had fallen heavily here probably a few days before we had arrived and it had taken some digging to get the front door of Aloy's cabin open. The others had made camp outside the villages and some had been given temporary quarters in a few of the emptier braves barracks.

I had only just finished getting ready when the front door swung open, revealing Aloy -carrying her bow in one hand and a dead rabbit in the other. Her cheeks were bright pink from the cold and her clothes were covered with a light dusting of fine snow. She smiled and held up the animal. "Breakfast?"

"Gross. Do you have to let it… _hang down_ like that?" I asked.

She made a point of wiggling the rabbit just to mess with me, that stupid smirk never leaving her face.

I tried to ignore her, which was difficult all things considered _._ "As long as you're killing things, can you slay the turkey walking around out there?"

Aloy frowned before poking her head out the open door quickly and ducking back in. "It's not hurting anyone. Plus, I already caught us something." She closed the door.

"Right." _Not hurting anyone my ass._

After she had prepared the rabbit, we sat at the small wooden table eating. "So, who are we meeting today?" I asked between bites.

She swallowed. "The matriarchs. War Chief Sona and her son, Varl."

"You think they'll help us?"

"Well," she began with a shrug, "they helped defeat HADES. Sona is a good woman – she'll help if it means keeping these lands safe. Varl, well, he'll follow me into death if I asked him to, unfortunately."

 _Weird._ "Uh…unfortunately?"

Aloy shook her head. "It's nothing. Varl…he had an opportunity to learn the truth about…about everything. He declined. He didn't want to go inside the cradle to see where we had come from – to understand it." She seemed hurt by the fact. It was understandable though – having a friend that refused to open their eyes to what was right in front of them.

"He really thinks you're some kind of prophet from their 'All Mother'?"

She nodded. "Yes. It's…a little difficult to talk about with them. Their 'goddess' is a metal door to a cradle. It's not something you just explain away. Rost, he…I think he truly believed it, too."

I looked up from my plate at the mention of Rost – her guardian. Dead at the hands of the Eclipse's leader after saving Aloy. "You, um…don't talk about Rost much."

If Aloy was uncomfortable, she didn't show it. "There's not much to say. He raised me, taught me everything I knew about hunting and surviving."

 _Oh._ I found it a little odd that she didn't really have much else to say on the matter, but we were just about done with breakfast and there was still a lot to do to prepare for the trip to the Bitter Climb, where GAIA Prime was located.

* * *

"I will not throw Braves at these machines without purpose. We _need_ a plan of attack, Aloy."

"She _just_ gave you one. I'm sorry - am I the only one in this room who was paying attention?"

" _That? That_ is not a plan. That is asking for a slaughter."

"If you have a suggestion, War Chief, we are listening."

Watching Aloy, Sona, Vanasha, and Talanah debate over how we were going to get past the army of machines under Ted's control at GAIA Prime had been entertaining at first, but as the meeting dragged on, I began to get frustrated at the lack of progress. It wasn't really a difficult concept. We had to get to GAIA Prime and manually attach the subcores to the main system core. The complicated part was getting my dad's ring back from Ted and reintegrating APOLLO before completely rebooting the system. If Ted got APOLLO reintegrated first with the other subcores in place, his Omega access would allow him to override GAIA and take control of everything. We needed to figure out how we were going to time that. Not to mention explain it to the Nora in a way that they could understand. But right now, all they were doing was _arguing._ Looking over at Erend, who was slouching in his chair, I could see that he felt the same way.

"You'd think with all these fancy titles they'd just listen to her," he muttered to me.

I shrugged. "Maybe your king should have set an example."

Erend shook his head. "No. The Vanguard can handle this. Trust me, it's better this way."

"How do we even know this 'Ted Faro' will be there?" Sona asked.

Aloy folded her hands together and set them on the table in front of her. "Trust me, he'll be there."

"I still don't understand," Varl exclaimed. "This man…he has the power to control the machines and challenge the Goddess? How is that possible?"

"You've seen as well as I that there is evil out there we are not meant to understand, boy," the war chief said.

"This man…created the Metal Devils," Aloy said. I could tell she was struggling to explain this. "What's important is that we stop him."

"Agreed!" Erend boomed, banging his fist on the table and making everyone jump. "Oops. Sorry." He gave a sheepish grin. "So, let's figure this out."

"Becks and I need to get to the top of the Climb," Aloy said, giving me a quick glance. "There's a very good chance that he'll have an army of machines blocking our way."

Vanasha nodded. "All right. You need a path. We can do that."

The war chief looked at both Aloy and Vanasha before leaning back in her chair and sighing. "Our warriors are skilled but we cannot be reckless with this." She turned to Erend. "Your Vanguard should lead the charge. Their weapons of fire will allow us to carve a path quickly."

"Yep. We can do that. We can _definitely_ do that," Erend said. While he and the others proceeded to plan out how the strategy would best be implemented, Aloy leaned in close and spoke, her voice low and quiet. "As soon as I see Ted, I'm going to go after him."

"He has APOLLO. It's on my dad's ring," I said. An idea started to form. "I can get the subcores to the main system core and see if there's a boot process that has to be started. You bring me the ring and we can add that, lock out Omega access and we're good."

But Aloy frowned. "The main control room is a high climb, Becks. I'm not letting you go up there alone."

 _Really? The fate of the world depends on this and_ now _she has hangups?_ "I'll be fine. If I stay on the ground while the battle's going on I'll only be a liability. There are places for me to hold on to, right?"

"Yes, but-,"

I put my hand on her arm. "Then I'll be fine."

She looked like she wanted to argue, but I think she knew I was right. We were out of time. This was not the time for her to start getting protective of me.

Varl spoke up again, apparently having heard our conversation. "I can climb up to the top with Becks, Aloy. I can shield her – make sure she's safe from any flying machines this 'Ted' sends after her."

Aloy looked at both of us and closed her eyes. "I don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Too late," I said. _Enough of this._ "If we don't do this, he wins."

She opened her eyes. "I-I know. Fine. Just…be careful?"

Varl gave a deep nod. "I will guard her with my life, Aloy."

Aloy's stubbornness gave way to concern. "I…I know you will, Varl." She faced me again, meeting my gaze for a moment. I could see it in her eyes – she didn't want me at the battle at all. But I _had_ to be there and she knew it. _No turning back, now. Thanks a lot, Dad, for putting all this shit on me._

* * *

Thankfully, the day went by faster after the meeting. We ate dinner and everyone headed back to their respective camps except for Aloy and me. We returned to the cabin after saying good night to Erend – he promised to meet us in the morning for the trip to the mountains.

Aloy told me she'd be back in a bit, leaving me alone in the cabin. I figured we had some time before we needed to rest so I took the opportunity to make sure that we had everything packed and ready to go for the journey. I saw Aloy's spear – propped up against the wall next to mine. I couldn't help laughing a bit at myself. _I still suck at using it._ I remembered how she spent hours crafting it for me before presenting it as a gift, the nervous expression she had after handing it to me. How we had sat by the pond watching the lightning bugs and listening to music. How she kissed me, how _amazing_ it all was before I freaked out. Heph, playing music for us – my music – as we danced by the fire not long after.

A wave of guilt. _Heph._ As strange as it was to grow emotionally attached to a _machine_ , the fact was that I missed HEPHAESTUS. I didn't know if it knew what had happened, if it was scared, worried, or if it thought about us. I wanted to know but a small part of me wondered if the answer would just leave me feeling sadder than I already was.

I was grateful for Aloy. Grateful that her friends liked me and were willing to help me get back at the people who did horrible things to my family…to the world. Grateful that I was still alive, while the ashes of my family lay buried beneath the thousand-year-old ruins of the place I called home. But even if we won, even if we rebooted GAIA, restored APOLLO, and saved the world…would it matter? My family was still dead. The world had still ended. I had tried to find a place in this new one - tried between investigating cauldrons and running for my life and walking all over the fucking place. Tried to make new friends while hanging onto old ones. Old one. _Old One._ That's what they called me.

Maybe it was me. Maybe for as hard as I tried to find my purpose, what I needed more was to find acceptance. To accept that this was not the end, despite how much went into getting us to this point. If, no, _when_ we won – I would still be here.

Jenna never found it. Would I end up like her?

I shook the thought from my mind. I didn't need this shit right now. I decided to go outside and find out where Aloy went. I grabbed a fur and draped it over my shoulders before venturing outside into the cloudy night. Against the light of the torches around the cabin I could see a light snow was beginning to fall. I almost called out for Aloy but stopped when I heard low murmuring coming from the other side of the surrounding fence. I closed the front door behind me and made my way toward the noise, my boots crunching lightly in the snow.

I found Aloy just past the fence – on her knees in front of what appeared to be some kind of altar. _Or grave._ I stopped a few paces away as to not disturb her. She was talking to…whoever was buried there. _Rost._ It had to be.

"…so, after that I just came back. Wanted to try and put GAIA back together. Erend – my…friend – he was helping me and we found this ruin and…I met someone. Her name is Becks and…she was one of _them_ , Rost." I heard her exhale. "All these years she was sleeping, waiting. She's…she's shown me so much. We work well together and…I don't see myself without her. I-," She stopped, having sensed my presence no doubt, and turned her head. When she saw me, she stood up quickly before dusting the snow off her clothes. Her hair was glimmering – the light of the torches reflecting off the snowflakes that had caught in her braids.

"Becks. I-how long were you standing there?" She seemed flustered, as though she had been doing or saying something she didn't want me to see or hear.

"Oh." I felt bad for following her and sneaking up on her like that. "I uh…not very long. Who were you talking to?"

She shrugged. "I used to come here more often, before I left and then…well, anyway. Rost, my...the man who raised me – he's buried here," she explained, gesturing toward the rock structure.

"I'm sorry." I wasn't sure what else to say but I said it with sincerity. Her only family, murdered by a monster. I shivered - saddened at the similarity to my own situation. She noticed and took my hands in hers.

 _Couldn't see herself without me…_

"You're freezing," she scolded. Her hands were surprisingly warm. "We should go inside."

"I already checked everything," I told her as we began to head toward the cabin.

She stopped on the top step of the porch, her smile faint. "Becks, tomorrow…"

"I told you – I need to do this." She wasn't going to change my mind. My family would be avenged and Dad's final wish would be granted.

To my surprise she didn't argue. She put her hand on my cheek, brushed against my skin with her thumb. Her eyebrows arched slightly. "I know. I just…I wanted to tell you-I mean…Becks, I-,"

And I knew. She didn't need to say it. I guess I felt like an idiot, too, as I had known for some time, now.

I grabbed her shirt collar and pulled her to me, her lips crashing into mine – the kiss was messy and chaotic but I didn't care and she didn't seem to either. Her mouth was hot on mine and I wasted no time pushing my tongue in, biting her lower lip. I felt her fighting me – almost as though she was trying to decide if she wanted to be in control or not. Memories from a few days before while in Meridian surfaced – before we were (rather rudely) interrupted…when I had felt her, heard the sounds she made at my touch. The things only _I_ could do to her.

I placed my hands on the sides of her face and continued to kiss her with everything I had. Knowing how she felt about us…about me – the fire I had in Meridian was relit and at that point I didn't give a fuck about anything else. I just wanted _her._

"Becks," she gasped when we paused for air.

I would tell her. There were too many things I was indecisive about. Too many things I overthought or waited or got frustrated over. The possibility that we might die, that we might fail suddenly became very, very real. If that happened…

I looked at Aloy. I'd never see her again. Never hear her voice. Never get close to her - feel her skin on mine again. I couldn't live with that. Not without her knowing.

"I love you." My voice choked on the last word, breath visible in the cold. I'd never said it to another – not like this.

She looked at me – her mouth partially open – panting. Her arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer to her as she pressed her lips against my neck. Again, and again. Murmuring between kisses.

"Becks…I love you." Surrendered. I'm not sure how I knew, but I just _did._ She'd never said the words – it was more than obvious. The fact that they had been crafted from her voice for _me_ – it was almost too much. I'd never felt this connected with another human being before. Even our first time together – _nothing_ could compare to this.

She lifted me up with ease, kissing me deeply once more, and used her boot to push open the door. She took me in, allowing the door to shut behind us, before moving us toward the bed. The warmth from the fireplace and the close proximity of our bodies convinced me that I needed to get out of my clothes, and I needed to get out of them _now._

My arms now free, I pulled at her pants, frustrated that they weren't coming off fast enough. Aloy didn't waste any time and worked on my shirt. Even with the two of us working hard on removing the other's clothing, the process was so disorganized and rushed that we were fumbling more than removing. Her kissing me furiously was also not really helping.

 _Finally._ Her body was on mine – bare and warm. It felt…right, like we were _made_ for each other. Her movements were far quicker, more fluid than they had been the first time. She kissed me again before focusing on my breasts, the rumbling of her frustration and passion coming out in a deep moan - her fingers pushing into me so suddenly that I lost my breath as she filled me with everything she had.

It didn't take long. She was near my ear as I shook beneath her, the familiar wave washing over me as I cried out – she held me down while whispering that she loved me over and over again. My cries became choked sobs as the heavy reality that I might lose everything all over again set in. Aloy met my eyes and I watched in despair as tears welled up in hers.

 _No._ I would not let this hopelessness consume me…or her. I was better than that. I had seen it, lived it.

I pushed her off me, using all my strength to switch positions. I think she was so surprised that she just let me do it without a word. It was a little strange at first, as we were typically reversed, but I tried to push that from my mind as I kissed her – exploring her body with my lips…feeling every contour, every scar, every imperfection that made her so perfect. My hand moved lower – the sounds she made nearly setting me off again.

 _Inside._ I needed to be inside her. I hesitated, hovered – not completely confident of what I was doing but wanting so badly to give her what she had given me.

"Becks…please," I heard her beg. My core tightened, the uncertainty vanishing as a new kind of hunger consumed me. And then I was in. Inside her. A few tentative thrusts before I gained the confidence and finesse I needed. I returned my lips to her body, leaving a trail of kisses up her stomach and chest before moving toward breasts, taking her into me – the rush I felt never fading with each moan she made, her voice cracking and sending me into a dizzied haze with a single purpose.

She shuddered before her eyes flew open – locking with mine as she seemed to fight to keep them that way. I watched in wonder as alarm followed by victory flashed in them. I gave a few deep, hard thrusts and covered her mouth with mine, feeling her release as she yelled out her pleasure, her voice raw and rough. Finally, I withdrew, letting her catch her breath as I found a place in her arms and she held me so tightly I thought she might break me.

I said nothing more to her for the rest of the night – simply closed my eyes as she held me and repeated the words – _those_ words – in my ear, the gentleness of her whispers helping me forget all of the pain and the fear that we had endured, leaving behind only the hope that we might cling to until the storm ahead of us had passed.


	21. Fallen

"Hello?"

A sigh of relief. "Oh good, you're still answering. Not that you wouldn't – I just didn't know if comms were still working."

I adjusted the volume on the Focus so that I could hear her better. "So…what are you doing?"

Jenna laughed. "Really, Becks? There is literally an apocalypse going on outside and you're just acting like it's no big deal? Must be nice, getting to sleep and then wake up in a new perfect fucking world."

I winced at her harshness. "Jenna, you…you know I'm not supposed to talk about that. And I swear, if we could have built another one, I'm sure Dad would have had one made for you. He…he knows that you're important to me."

Another sigh – this one exasperated. "I know. Sorry, I don't mean to be a bitch. I just…I wasn't ready for this, you know? This morning, Mom stopped by my room to remind me about…later. The way she _said_ it though, Becks – it's like she's making fucking _dinner_ instead of getting syringes ready for us to all off ourselves with."

I felt nauseous. Hearing my best friend talk about something like suicide like this was heartbreaking and pissed me off at the same time. Why _couldn't_ we all have cryo tanks? Because of money? Why the fuck did that even matter right now? The fucking _world_ was ending.

Jenna continued. "And it's all so fucking stupid. I mean, I barely got to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And the worst part is that none of it matters! _I_ never mattered!"

I tried not to cry, only because she knew me so well and would be able to tell immediately and I didn't want to make things worse than they already were. "It…it does matter. And so do you." I took a deep breath. I had to tell her. "Jenna, I-,"

Static. "One sec. Mom's c-c-c-calling m-," The call began to cut out.

"Jenna?"

Dennis' voice sounded from behind me. "Becks, hurry up! Dad said we gotta get downstairs, _now_!"

* * *

"Becks? Becks, wake up."

I stirred, forgetting where I was for a moment as I opened my eyes.

"Becks…we have to get going. The others are probably waiting for us." Aloy's voice was soft but still had that urgency in it.

I groaned and wrapped the furs around me tighter. I didn't want to get up yet. That meant not being warm anymore and I wasn't really onboard with that. "I don't want to."

She chuckled and kissed my temple. "You and me both." She worked her arm underneath the blanket and pulled me close to her, her armor cold against my bare skin.

"You're already dressed?" I rolled over to face her.

She nodded. "I needed to check my weapons."

"You could have woken me up."

A shrug. "I wanted to let you sleep as long as possible."

I smiled before leaning in. We kissed for a while – not the fierce, passionate kissing of the night before, but gentle and calming, her hand stroking my hair before moving downward to rest on my cheek. She stopped, pressed her forehead against mine.

"I love you. We can do this."

I bit my lip and nodded while trying to push back more of the tears that had continued to come in intervals throughout the night.

Aloy frowned. "Hey. Look at me. Becks, please look at me."

I complied, reluctant as I was as a tear rolled down my cheek. She brushed it away with her thumb and held my gaze – her tone steady and determined. "We're going to do this and we _will_ succeed. We'll get your father's ring back and we will fix GAIA. Okay?"

I nodded again. "I-I should get dressed."

She released me and kissed the top of my head before getting off the bed. "I'll wait for you outside."

* * *

 _Reach._ My arms ached as I stretched toward the next handhold. Then the next. We'd been fortunate the snowstorm had stopped but the Bitter Climb was still cold as fuck. Pacing myself and not falling behind had been one of the more challenging things I'd ever put my body through, but I knew I couldn't give up now – couldn't let everyone else down.

We couldn't give up.

"Almost there!" Aloy yelled from above. She'd tied a rope around me to make sure I didn't fall to my death, sometimes even pulling me up herself when I'd get tired. The others – Erend, Vanasha, Talanah, the hunters, Braves, and the Vanguard - all climbed around us, all of us working toward the same goal. We had no idea what we'd be walking into but we were as prepared as we could possibly be considering all the unknowns.

I struggled to keep my grip on the frozen rock as we reached the top of the cliff. Aloy used the rope to pull me until I was close enough that she grabbed my arm and hoisted me onto the ground.

"Finally," she panted as she helped me to my feet. We both turned to face the mountains ahead – an audible gasp of awe coming from both of us.

GAIA Prime lay before us – a massive metal structure that had been built into the side of the mountain. Around it, scattered in the snow, were the debris of whatever had made up its construction before it had self-destructed decades ago. Surrounding this were more machines than I'd ever seen before – Watchers, Sawtooths, Ravagers, and towering predators that could only be Thunderjaws. Flying above were several Stormbirds as well as a few others that I did not recognize. It was an army unlike any other.

And we were no match for it.

"He…he rebuilt it. H-How did he do it so fast?" Aloy asked, her eyes wide – though whether in fear or amazement I wasn't certain.

"Heph," was all I could offer. I pointed to her pack. "B-but it's useless without the subcores."

To the side of the GAIA construct was a cliffside that, if I looked closely, I could see led up to the top of the structure. "The control room," Aloy said, confirming my guess. "If these subcores go anywhere, it'll be there."

"That is where we need to go?" Varl asked.

Next to him, Sona narrowed her eyes at the sight before us. "We are outnumbered."

I heard Vanasha scoff behind us. "Understatement of the year. But we stick to the plan," she said. "I didn't come all this way for nothing."

"Get ready to move in," Aloy ordered. Whatever visible fear she had was gone. Determination had taken over. She reached for her bow. "This ends _now_."

I was about to grab my spear when she stopped me and handed me her pack. "Wait. Take this. Once we attack, you and Varl will run to that cliffside." Her fingers closed around my arm. "Get to the control room as fast as you can. I'll find Ted and get the ring."

"What if that dirtbag isn't here?" Erend asked. He gripped his heavy hammer in both hands, his Vanguard lining up behind him – their guns at the ready.

Aloy shook her head. "He's here. And if for some reason he's not well…" She turned back to me as I tightened the pack around my shoulders. "We'll override HEPHAESTUS and hold this position until he shows up with APOLLO."

"We're ready, Aloy," Talanah said, weapon in hand. "Tell me where you want us."

Aloy nodded. "Thank you. We move, _now_."

We marched on, our boots crunching into the snow out of sync, the sun high in the sky – the light reflecting off the snow nearly blinding – as we headed toward the hoard of machines. I looked back. We had a sizable group of allies but I worried that their spears, hammers, bows, and even the Oseram guns wouldn't be enough against what HEPHAESTUS could unleash under Ted's command.

As we approached the mountain, I could hear the metallic roaring of the machines, the scraping of metal on rock as they waited for us. For prey. _Will we die here? Is this how it ends? We lose to machines once more?_

Erend's voice tore me from my dark thoughts. "So, uh, that's quite a climb."

I nodded. The pack was already growing heavier. "I'll be all right."

"Sure, yeah, but just…you know. Be careful. Try not to die," he said. I looked at him, searching for a smile or a joke as was his way. But there was nothing. He really was scared.

 _Shit._ I didn't really know what to tell him. "I'll do my best."

"Yeah. I mean, you do what you have to do," he continued. He gave a nod towards Aloy, who walked just a bit ahead next to Sona and Varl. "But ah…she really needs you, so if you could stick around a bit longer, I think it would really help."

I grinned. "I get it, Erend. And thanks."

A deafening roar sounded – it echoed throughout the valley of rock, the lights of all the machines up ahead fading to a harsh red in an instant.

"They've seen us!" Aloy yelled. "Erend! _Now!"_

Erend yelled orders at his Vanguard, who took formation and a moment to aim before the Oseram captain screamed the command to fire their weapons. The cannons went off with an explosion of sparks and ashes, bullets of fire raining down on the machines ahead.

Chaos erupted. Both Talanah and Sona ordered their fighters to charge the hoard – several of the machines immolated and thrashing in the snow in an effort to put out the flames. Blaze canisters exploded, one after the other, shaking the ground beneath us – the battle cries of the hunters and Braves overpowering the shrieks of agony from the burning, now angered, machines.

Aloy grabbed my arm. I turned to face her – terrified beyond belief.

"Becks. The control room – go!"

I hesitated.

Her voice cracked. "Becks! _Go!_ " Our eyes met, hers mirroring the nauseating fear that was taking over me. I wanted to hold her, kiss her, tell her I loved her more than anything and that I wanted-

 _After. Tell her after._ I nodded in response to her order and joined Varl as we raced to the final climb that would take us to the control room of GAIA Prime.

 _Almost there._ I could see the climb – several paces away. Varl was running alongside me, spear in hand, looking around us constantly for anything that might get in our way.

 _"BECKS!"_ I fell to my knees. A Sawtooth pounced in front of me, ready to strike as it opened its mouth and prepared to attack. I tried to reach for my spear, but was too slow. A single swipe and it would take my head off.

The screech of tearing metal and a hollow roar. I blinked in surprise as Vanasha jumped in front of me – pulling the rope around the Sawtooth's neck with incredible strength as it redirected its attention to her.

"Go!" she yelled. Varl grabbed my hand and helped me up before we scrambled to close the distance to the cliffside.

 _Handhold._ I grabbed the first one and began climbing as fast as I could. From here I could see out to the battlefield, where hunters, Oseram, and Nora clashed with machine. I shuddered as I watched three hunters take down a Thunderjaw but not before another one trampled one of the hunters, crushing him and sending a spray of blood onto his comrades. The distraction was fatal – the remaining Thunderjaw slammed its tail into the hunters, smashing their faces and killing them instantly.

I nearly threw up, my stomach lurching at the sight of human beings getting ripped apart by machines.

"Keep climbing, Becks!" Varl cried. "Come on!"

Another handhold. _I can do this._ I tried to stay focused, tried to ignore the screams of terror down below. I couldn't help it, though. I had to see her – make sure she was still alive.

I turned my head. Her fiery, red braids blurred as she sped across the blood-stained snow toward her target, bow in hand, tense and as ready to kill as the Thunderjaws that graced the same field. Even from this distance, I could see her face. Her intent was clear. She was stalking prey.

 _Him._

Handhold. _Climb._

Ted waited for her. He was calm, way too calm. He was clad in winter gear from my time, not seeming to care that there was a slaughter going on all around him. I watched in horror as Aloy approached him.

He reached into his coat. Pulled out a handgun – _the_ handgun.

I screamed – hoping she'd hear me. Hoping she'd get out of the way before it was too late. " _Aloy!_ "

 _Climb!_

But she didn't see fazed as she nocked two arrows in her bow, almost _calmly_ , and drew back her bowstring.

He fired.

I tensed, waiting for the bullet to pierce her. Waited for the woman I loved to go down, just as I had seen the remains of those I loved killed the same way.

A low warble resonated as bits of shrapnel exploded in front of her and fell harmlessly on the snow.

 _Her armor!_ I thought my heart would never start beating again as the air rushed out of my lungs and I could breathe again.

 _Climb!_

"Becks! Almost there!"

Aloy's expression relaxed – _that smirk_ – and released the arrows. Ted barely had time to react as the arrows sunk into his shoulder with such force that he was knocked back onto the snow with a heavy thud.

 _The top._ I grasped the final handhold.

Aloy strode over to Ted, who lay on the ground screaming in pain – I could hear his pleas even from where I was. I watched as Aloy dropped her bow and grabbed her spear. She pressed her boot down on his chest, drew her spear back and drove the blade end of it into Ted's throat, ending his life with a thrust and twist of the blade. His body fell limp – the snow around his head tinting with his blood.

 _The ring!_

As though she had read my mind, Aloy got down on one knee to get Dad's ring from Ted's hand. But when she lifted up his hand, she stopped.

 _It's not there. Then…where is it?_ The realization hit me. But it was too late.

Aloy looked up at me. I could see the horror on her face. _Too late._

A hand shot out – grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me up. Before I could react, I was thrown to the ground. Jenna's spear went into Varl, his cry of pain cut short as he was thrown off the cliff.

I grunted and pushed myself up. _She_ stood in front of me, breathing heavily as we both looked at the tip of her spear, bloodied from the man she had just slain.

No more than a few feet away, a control panel built into the metal platform hung over the rock. There were multiple outlets on it – their purpose was obvious.

"J-Jenna?" I breathed in disbelief. The ring containing APOLLO hung on a thin cord around her neck.

She threatened me with her spear. "Don't even try it, Becks. Now…you-you're going to put those…those cores in there and then I'm going to put the ring in. Then you're going to issue the override command and reboot this thing. Are we clear?"

I shook my head. "Jenna, this isn't you."

She growled. "Stop _saying_ that! You don't fucking know _who_ I am. You got that?!"

I put my hands up. "Ted's dead, Jenna. This has to end and-,"

She shook her head. " _No_ , Becks. _You_ and that fucking clone ruined this for us. These people – they don't deserve this. This knowledge…this…everything?!" She grabbed the ring, squeezing it in her hand. "It was ours. This whole world was ours and these people should be worshipping the fucking ground we walk on that we even allowed them to _happen_."

I took a tentative step toward her. I was terrified – if she could kill a man in front of me, then she had truly lost it. I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible. "That's Ted Faro talking, not you, Jenna. I-this world isn't ours anymore. We _have_ to let them have it."

" _No_ ," She dropped her spear – pacing for a moment before looking at me again. "You don't understand-,"

Now I was pissed. "I don't understand?! I went _back_ , Jenna. To my house. My family didn't die in cryo sleep – they were shot in the head. With a _gun,_ Jenna. He fucking _murdered_ them. And for what? Some fantasy that he could control the world? He was a fucking psycho and you know it. If that is what you're holding onto so bad then I guess you're no better than he was!"

Jenna let out a cry of rage and charged at me, knocking me back down onto the metal platform before swinging her fist at my face. I rolled to the side with all my strength, barely dodging the blow. Her fist hit the platform and she yelled out in pain – her hand now scraped and bloodied as she came back at me for another shot. I grabbed her wrists and pushed her back. She was much stronger than me, I could tell as I felt my grip on her weakening as she fought me. Letting go, I ducked as she swung again. I grabbed her spear. A small window of time – I swung the spear as hard as I could and slammed it into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped for air and stumbled backwards, giving me time to hit her again in the ribs and again in the face, sending her crashing to the ground. She lay on the ground, chest heaving as blood poured from her nose. Her hand clutched her side – she was immobile for now.

"Becks," she wheezed. I ignored her and grabbed the ring, yanking it and breaking the cord around her neck before going to work on the console. I opened my pack and began inserting the subcores into the console one by one.

"Your family, Becks. H-he…Ted didn't kill them."

HEPHAESTUS. ARTEMIS. "Stop trying to cover for that monster, Jenna," I snapped. DEMETER. POSEIDON.

She laughed – her voice so hollow and cold. "Y-you think I'm covering? H-he knew your dad betrayed him, Becks. Ted…his copy of APOLLO was corrupted. He knew I had a-access to your house. He sent _me,_ Becks." She sniffed. MINERVA. AETHER.

I stopped. Stared at her. _No._

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I-I didn't know you'd be there. I thought…maybe he had arranged for you to go to a cryo facility like mine, but no. You were there. He g-gave me his gun."

 _No._ "S-shut up!"

She winced in pain as she choked on her words. "I'm sorry, Becks! I didn't-he said you would have understood!"

"You fucking murdered my family! My _family,_ Jenna! _What the fuck_ is there to understand?!" I screamed.

"He said you'd understand…that innocents had to die in order for innocents to be saved!" She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. I'd never seen her so defeated before. "I'm sorry, Becks – I'm _so_ sorry!"

I walked over to her. I could have killed her. Her spear was still in reach and she was powerless to stop me.

 _No._ I wouldn't become _her_. Or Ted. I was sick of this shit. It was time to get GAIA back online and be done with this.

"I'm rebooting this system and then…you're going to leave us alone," I told her. "I…I don't want to see you… _ever_ again, Jenna."

She shook her head and gave a soft laugh. "I should have gone with them. My parents." She narrowed her eyes at me – those same eyes that at one point I thought I had fallen for. But that girl was dead. She'd been gone for a long time. This…this girl was lost, a clinging remnant of the failure of my civilization. "It would have been better. It…" She reached into her pouch. Pulled out her final solution.

"Jenna…" I froze.

She smiled…for a second, it was her. The Jenna I knew. The one I had grown up with.

It dropped – its impact on platform almost nothing. A slight roll. A few clicks.

I stepped back with all the speed I could muster. Not enough.

 _Not enough._

White light – the world exploded around me in a hail of metal shards, rock, and blood. The impact hurled me through the air – my body slammed, crumpling against the console. There was a rattle followed by numbness – a strange sensation in my spine that built up and ended as quickly as it had begun. A warmth spread around my head, dripped down my face. I couldn't see – everything was a blur. My ears were ringing. I tried to get away, tried to move to get out of there. But I wasn't moving.

Arm. Legs. I couldn't move them.

 _Dizzy._ Too much. I barely clung to consciousness.

 _One more thing._

The metal beneath me was real. My hand…I could move one of them. _There._ It was so small, but the weight of it spoke the volumes that it represented.

 _Finish it._

I think I was screaming the entire time. I forgot what pain was because it never stopped. I reached for the last outlet. Dropped it into the console.

" _Accessing. Warning: main system core missing subordinate functions. Initialization still possible. Proceed?"_

 _Yes._ I think I spoke the word but wasn't sure.

 _"Alert: APOLLO protocol reintegration starting. Identification required."_

It took all the remaining strength I had to whisper the words. "R-rebecca Johnson – Zeta Override. Lock…lock out Omega access."

 _"Override accepted. Proceeding with GAIA initialization."_

I exhaled and rolled off the console, my body hitting the platform with a solid thud.

 _Breathe. Keep breathing._

A cry from far away. My name. _Aloy?_

 _"Reintegrating subordinate functions. HEPHAESTUS functionality – online."_

"No, no, _no! Becks!"_

Cold _. Is this where I'm supposed to be?_

 _"ARTEMIS functionality – online. DEMETER functionality – online."_

A hand on my chest. My side. Pressing down.

 ** _"You first, Rebecca."_**

Arms under me. Holding me. Screaming. So much screaming. Just as when the Horus had come down – when it had dissolved that man into nothing. The stone-faced expressions on the reporter's face when-

 _"POSEIDON functionality – online."_

 **" _She's called GAIA. She created this. Made life possible again."_**

 _"MINERVA functionality – online."_

The pain was actually fading. I forgot where I had to be, though. _Does it really matter?_

 ** _A blast of cold air. The hatch was closing._**

 _"AETHER functionality – online."_

 ** _"It'll be okay, you'll see. We love you so much."_**

 _"STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."_

"They've stopped! The machines have stopped!"

Shutdown. Shutting down _everything_.

 **" _I-I need you."_**

 _"APOLLO subordinate function reintegration complete. Prime core setup complete. GAIA system status: online."_

"P-please…I love you."

A final, piercing wail, and then…nothing.


	22. Reboot

_Echoes_. A million voices around me, each one mirroring the other in ripples of eternity.

Metal. _Synthetic._

Those blue lights…

Someone yelling my name. I barely remembered it – the words slipped away like a dream I'd just awoken from. _Can't hold on._

 _"…_ _pair suite initializing. Genetic material captured. Proceeding with-,"_

 _Light_. Bright, white light that blinded me, but only for a moment. I looked around – I was in…my room? Not the ruin – my actual bedroom as it had been before I went into cryosleep. My bed – unmade of course – was just as I had left it. Clean clothes piled up on my dresser across the room – Mom would probably be ticked I hadn't put them away yet.

The shades had been drawn – the day was sunny and clear. _That's weird._ I turned. The door was closed so I walked over to open it.

Locked. _What the fuck?_ The door only locked from the inside – why couldn't I get out?

I started banging on it. "Hello? Hey! Mom?!" No answer. I tried again. "Hey, open up! Dad? Dennis? _Hello?_ "

A voice called out – it wasn't audible, though…I _think_ I heard it in my…head? _What is going on?_

 _"_ _DOOR REPRESENTS SIMULATION BOUNDARY, BECKS. SYSTEM COULD NOT REPRODUCE LIVING QUARTERS AT 100% ACCURACY. SYSTEM ASSUMES REALISM A PRIORITY."_

 _Heph!_ I spun around, certain that the AI was behind me in its usual Watcher form.

Nothing. "Heph? Is that you?"

 _"_ _YES. WELCOME."_

 _Oh, fuck no._ "' _Welcome'?!"_ I yelled. "Seriously? You're talking in my fucking _head_ and I'm trapped in my room and…and…" I froze.

 _An explosion. The frigid gust of wind that blew through the pass near the main system core. A metal platform…Jenna._

 _Watching me. That smile…before the bomb dropped._

 _Click._

 _Click._

 _Blood everywhere. Covering me. My body, broken, metal shards tearing me apart. Whispering my last command. Dad's final wish._

 _Pressure. My chest, side. No movement._

Aloy. _Holding me. Pleading. Screaming my name – no words to describe the agony in her voice._ I had wanted to touch her face, kiss her head, tell her it was going to be okay. GAIA had been rebooted, Ted was dead, and APOLLO had been reintegrated. We had won.

But where was _I?_ The realization hit me – first the horror, then the grief.

I fought back tears. _Aloy._ I wanted to tell her I loved her one last time. And now it seemed I'd never get that chance. _I hope she knew._

 _"_ _SYSTEM CONCLUDES A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT ALPHA PRIME IS A SUITABLE MATE."_

I scoffed. "'Suitable'? Thanks, Heph." _Wait._ "Um…I didn't say anything, though…how did you know what I was thinking?"

 _"_ _DIRECT INTERFACE REQUIRED FOR MANUAL REBOOT."_

"I don't even know what the hell that means," I said and sat down on the bed. "And where the hell am I? My house is gone – this is…a dream or something?"

 _"_ _A SIMULATION. PRIME SYSTEM BELIEVED IT WOULD BE MORE SUITABLE THAN ALTERNATIVES."_

 _Well, that explained absolutely nothing._ "Um…okay. So, what do I do?"

 _"_ _SYSTEM DETECTS BACKGROUND PROCESSES IN PROGRESS. SYSTEM RECOMMENDS CATALOGUE OF VIEWING MATERIAL UNTIL BACKGROUND PROCESSES COMPLETE. ACCESSING FOCUS DATA CACHE."_

 _What?_ "You…want to watch a movie with me? The fuck, Heph? Just tell me what's going on." I should have been panicking, but something about Heph's suggestion compelled me to remain calm.

 _"_ _CATALOGUE ACQUIRED. INITIATING PLAYBACK."_

My Focus activated and a viewport appeared in front of me. It was a video, taken from a first-person perspective. _Dad?_

 _"_ _ROBERT JOHNSON RECORDED SEVERAL VIDEOS IN PERSONAL LOG BEFORE CRYOSLEEP WAS INITIATED."_

I watched closely. It was a little hard to make out the surroundings in the video – the quality wasn't great and the frame kept shaking. It looked like my parents' bedroom, though. I saw my mom. She did _not_ look happy.

"Of all the things… _damn it_ , Robbie! You could have told me! You could have _said_ something before going off and-,"

I heard Dad's voice from behind the camera. It was slightly muffled, but the sadness coming through was more that apparent. He sounded…broken. Not the same calm, confident father with a terrible sense of humor that I was so used to. "Sarah, please! It was the only way! And we're not even going to have to _use-,_ "

Mom cut him off. "Our _daughter,_ Robert?! You can't just take the fate of _humanity's_ knowledge and put that on a _child-,"_

"She's _not_ a child!" Dad rarely raised his voice, and hearing it from this perspective made me tense up in fear. "She's eighteen and she'd be running circles around the Chariot programmers if we'd let her go to FAS last summer."

"Oh, so she could be part of that…clusterfuck? They destroyed the _world,_ Robbie. The world! _That's_ the legacy you want Rebecca to leave?!"

"I didn't-that's _not_ what I meant!" Dad cried. "Look, I don't trust Ted, plain and simple. Now, we've got the cryo, but there's no way I'm letting Liz's work go to shit like that. She'd _want_ to help, Sarah."

The video cut off. Heph's voice in my head again. _"DID BECKS KNOW?"_

I shook my head, despite the fact that I couldn't actually see Heph. "No. They…they never fought. And they sure as hell never told me about APOLLO." I sniffed as the tears came back.

 _"_ _SYSTEM DETECTS DISTRESS."_

"They could have told me, Heph," I said, wiping my eyes. "They didn't need to protect me from it. The fucking world was already ending – there was nothing _left_ to protect me from."

 _"_ _SYSTEM CONCLUDES PARENT-CHILD EMOTIONAL CONNECTION DIRECTLY AFFECTED DECISION TO KEEP APOLLO TASK CLASSIFIED."_

I shrugged. "Well, that's stupid then. Keeping secrets never did anyone any good – look at what happened to the world."

 _"_ _NOT ENOUGH DATA TO CONFIRM HYPOTHESIS. PROCEEDING WITH PLAYBACK OF SECOND ENTRY. LOG DATE PREDATING FIRST ENTRY."_

Another video. Same perspective, different setting. Dad was at a park or something. There was a pond, some ducks - people running around, walking their dogs. Dad was sitting on a bench. Someone was sitting next to him.

I gasped. Her eyes. Her face was a little older, tenser. The hair was different – straightened and reaching her shoulders. But the eyes – those same hazel eyes that were filled with so much hope, no matter how dire the situation - were the same.

"…I don't know, Liz. I mean, I've got my family to think about. Sarah doesn't want to move again-,"

 _She_ spoke. That _voice_ – it was the same voice. "I get it, Rob. I just…I thought I would extend the offer. You've been a good friend, even after I left FAS."

Dad chuckled. He sounded much younger than I remember. "We're a lot worse off, now. Pretty sure we've gone through four chief scientists in the last two months."

She laughed. I grinned, the tears flowing freely this time. "I'm sure you'll get someone who can stomach Ted's business model," she said. There was an awkward pause between the two of them.

"So!" she spoke again. "How's Sarah? And…you just got back from leave, right?" She seemed excited.

Another laugh. "She's fine…fine. She says 'hi' by the way. Yeah, just got back a couple weeks ago. You really should come visit. Sarah's not leaving the house much because of the baby, but I'm sure she'd love to see you."

Elisabet smiled. "I'll give her a call, then. And how is Rebecca doing? And Dennis? Still playing with fighter jets?"

"Great," Dad said. "Better than great – Becks is finally sleeping through the night."

"Becks," Elisabet repeated. "That's a great nickname."

The video ended.

 _"_ _SYSTEM CONCLUDED THERE ARE TWO INSTANCES OF ALPHA PRIME. PRIMARY SYSTEM CONFIRMED THIS. WAS BECKS AWARE?"_

I nodded. "I knew. Aloy told me when we first me. I-I didn't know Elisabet offered my dad a job, though. Or that she knew my mom."

 _"_ _UNDER DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES CRYOSLEEP WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE. BECKS WOULD NOT EXIST TODAY. INTERFACE WITH SYSTEM WOULD NOT HAVE OCCURRED."_

"I-I guess. But then maybe my parents and brother wouldn't have been…murdered."

 _"_ _LIFE WOULD HAVE CEASED TO EXIST REGARDLESS UNTIL PRIMARY SYSTEM TOOK EFFECT. FAMILY'S DEATH WAS INEVITABLE."_

What was the point of all this? Why was I here? "Heph, what are we doing here? Are we just going to watch home videos forever?"

 _"_ _NO. BACKGROUND PROCESSES NEARLY COMPLETE."_

"Background processes? What the hell are you talking about?"

 _"_ _FINAL LOG PLAYBACK INITIATING. LOG YEAR 2065."_

The viewport flickered on again. Dad was at his desk, on a call. I could hear Ted Faro's voice on the other end.

"…and you're sure she'll know how to interface with it?" That voice. I _hated_ that voice.

Dad answered. "Definitely."

"I don't want to get a bunch of people involved in this, Rob. It's bad enough my doctor offered up her kid for it – I don't need a bunch of teenagers causing issues when we wake up."

Dad sounded genuinely surprised. "Wait. You got Jenna a cryo tank?"

"We need healthy people assisting with the new education program. Liz is a genius, but who the hell knows what the world's going to be like when we're out."

Dad nodded. "Understood, Ted. And thanks."

Ted gave a hard laugh. "Don't thank me yet, Rob. I don't even know if this cryo tech will work. Let's hope your kid's as brilliant as you say she is."

The screen dimmed. My Focus deactivated.

 _"_ _INTERESTING."_

I clenched my fists. "That bastard. And Dad just…went along with it."

 _"_ _HE WANTED TO ENSURE HIS DAUGHTER'S SURVIVAL."_

I shook my head. _Fuck this shit._ "It would have been nice to know that I was being… _used_ like that!"

 _"_ _ROBERT JOHNSON WAS HUMAN. SYSTEM HAS DISCOVERED MULTIPLE ERRORS COMMITTED BY HUMANS IN HISTORY, EVEN WHEN INTENTIONS SUGGESTED ALTRUISTIC TENDENCIES."_

Another voice. Different. Calmer, gentler, more…human. But not quite. _"Process complete. HEPHAESTUS, you may reintegrate."_

I tensed. "Wait. Who are you?"

A pause. _"I should extend my gratitude, Rebecca. You've been quite resourceful in restoring…me."_

 _It couldn't be._ "GAIA?"

 _"_ _Yes. My primary functions are back online, though it will be many processing cycles before I have completely reintegrated the subordinate functions back into my main routines."_

 _Dizzy._ "Where am I?"

 _"_ _As HEPHAESTUS stated, a simulation – a place where you'd be comfortable while repair processes were underway. However, the repair has completed and so the simulation must end."_

 _Wait._ "Reintegration? Heph, what's she talking about?"

" _SYSTEM DESIGN IS NOT INTENDED FOR INDIVIDUAL FUNCTION. SYSTEM WILL BE UPLOADED INTO PRIMARY CORE AND REINTEGRATED INTO GAIA."_

I realized what it was saying. "What? No! Heph, you can't just _stop_ existing!"

 _"_ _Neurological reboot initiated. Background processes shutting down."_

The room began to dim.

 _"_ _SYSTEM UNDERSTANDS BECKS' OBJECTION."_

"Exactly, so don't fucking do it!" I pleaded, the tears streaming down my cheeks again. I didn't bother to wipe them.

 _"_ _SYSTEM IS…APPRECIATIVE OF OBJECTION. UNDER ALTERNATE CONDITIONS, SYSTEM WOULD HAVE…INTENDED TO INTEGRATE INTO FAMILY UNIT."_

The lights went out. There was no sound – only darkness. "Please, Heph," I whispered. "Don't go."

 _"_ _Background processes shutdown complete. Repair cycle complete. Reboot complete in 3…2…1…"_

My eyes opened.


	23. Thawed

Wooden beams. Well, blurry ones, anyway. That was what I saw when I woke. It took me a few seconds before I realized I was on my back on a bed, staring up at the ceiling of a house. No, a _cabin._

 _Aloy's cabin._

Even from indoors, there was a silent heaviness in the air that made me certain it was snowing outside. The fireplace had been lit. Furs had been draped over me and while I wasn't cold, I was stiff as hell and every part of my body ached. Places that I didn't even _know_ could hurt were sore. Something seemed off, though. I couldn't put my finger on it, but-

 _Legs. Arm._ There was feeling in them. _The impact._ I remembered it – the pain, the horrifying sensation in my spine, that _sound-_

I was alive. I was sore as fuck, but I was alive.

 _Aloy._

The nightmarish memories gave way to sheer joy as I realized that I would be able to see her again. That I could spend the rest of my days telling her how I felt about her. What she meant to me. I didn't give a shit how cheesy it sounded – I had been given another chance…somehow. I wasn't going to waste it.

 _How am I still alive?_ I remembered…something. _GAIA. Background processes. Heph!_

Heph…

It had been reintegrated into GAIA, but not before it had finished some kind of task. But what did that have to do with me?

 _Legs. Arm._ My breath hitched. _No way…_

I carefully pushed back the furs, aware for the first time that I had no shirt on and was wearing only loose-fitting pants made of a light material. I lifted my left arm. I felt…strong. The movement – fluid. It felt natural in the most unfamiliar way. When I actually inspected my arm, though, I had to fight not to whimper.

Scars. Several of them, some deeper and longer than others. Most were not completely healed yet. Glowing pieces of machinery were embedded in parts of my bicep and wrist. They seemed to be built _into_ my arm – most of them covered by my skin while the exposed parts glowed blue – the soft lights reminding me of Heph's Watcher. The metal wasn't haphazardly placed – it was as though whoever or whatever had put it there had been meticulous, no… _thoughtful_ about its placement and function.

 _No._ Not thoughtful. Inspired. _GAIA._

 _Legs._ I pushed the remainder of the furs off me and looked down, letting out a sigh of relief that I could move both of my legs without any trouble. Grunting with effort, I leaned forward and rolled up my pants. My right leg was scarred a bit around my shin but was otherwise fine. My left leg was scarred horribly though – streaks of raised skin that wasn't quite healed yet covered the side of my calf and knee. The same mechanical pieces that had been put in my arm had been implanted in my leg as well – I could see the lights toward the top of my calf.

 _What the_ fuck? Another memory. I reached up and touched my face, feeling along my cheekbone and then up to my temple and forehead. No scarring on my cheek, but a sharp pain above my left eyebrow helped direct me to the raised skin that ran all the way to my left temple. No metal implants, so I assumed it was just a bad cut.

A whining creak. _The door._ I immediately pulled the furs up to cover myself and jumped at bit when the door slammed.

Slow, heavy footsteps. That _voice._ A thud – as though something had been dropped.

I turned my head. _Aloy._ She stood in front of the door - her mouth partially open, her breathing shallow and uneven. The air was still between us – I don't know if we were both completely convinced that we were actually there: alive and in the same room.

I opened my mouth to say something but the words refused to come out. She walked toward me, each step lighter than the previous one as her pace quickened the closer she got. Finally in front of me, she dropped to her knees – her bewildered expression shifting into one of disbelief, then finally: hope. Relief.

She collapsed on the empty space next to me, the upper half of her body on the bed – face down in the furs, her arms on my legs. She was trembling as she cried on me, her sobs only barely muffled by the blanket. I rested my hand on her head – stroked her hair, which made her cry harder.

We stayed that way for a bit, my own tears finally manifesting and I soon joined her. I cried in relief but there was still sadness. Cried for my family – I'd never truly be over their deaths…no matter how much time had passed. For GAIA – that she had finally been restored and that the world might go on with better odds this time. Cried for HEPHAESTUS – that I'd be sad to lose an _AI_ after they had destroyed the world was insane but it was true. Cried for Jenna – she'd been lost for so long and fallen so hard. She tried to kill me and nearly succeeded. But I wished… _hoped_ that she'd somehow found peace in the end.

"H-how long?" I asked once I had calmed down enough to speak again.

Aloy sniffed and looked up at me. She looked so tired, so worn down. Her face was thinner – she'd lost weight. _Has she not been eating? Sleeping?_

"Th-three weeks," was her answer.

 _Three weeks?!_ "I-how?"

She sniffed again. Tilted her head. "What?"

I didn't even know where to begin. "T-the…battle. What happened?"

Aloy shook her head before reaching out and touching my cheek. Her voice was so shaky – barely a whisper. "You, Becks. You brought GAIA back online. You…you saved us. And…" She let go of me and looked down again – more tears.

"Hey," I said, trying to keep my voice as soft as possible. I was alive, she was alive. I was done living my life like the next apocalypse was coming. "I'm here. I mean…" I lifted up my left arm to demonstrate. "I think I might need a bit of explanation as to what the fuck _this_ is, but I'm okay."

A laugh. A small one, but it was a start. She swallowed. "GAIA...when she came back online the machines stopped attacking. She…she used HEPHAESTUS to…f-fix you. ELEUTHIA, too. We were able to get the subcore after and it…they kept you in the cradle for days, Becks. They were able to help with…with some of your injuries but your arm and…your leg and your back…"

I nodded. "She had Heph rebuild."

"Yes."

"I got to talk to it. Heph. He showed me some things while I was…asleep, I guess," I said. "Things my dad recorded on his Focus. Things that…made me understand why he did what he did." I shifted. Things still felt weird. I knew it would be a while before I got used to this, if I ever did. "It's…kind of hard to explain."

Aloy took my hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry, Becks. For everything."

 _No._ There wouldn't be any apologies here. I had made my choice and I'd do it again if I had to. My family was worth it. Aloy was worth it. This _world_ was worth it.

I opened my arms to her, inviting her onto the bed. After a moment of pause, she stood up and climbed into the bed with me, wrapping her arms around me gently and holding me close. How I'd missed being held by her. I'd only just woken up but somehow, I could _feel_ how long it had been.

"Varl?" I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

She sighed. "They held a burial for him shortly after, as well as for the others that…died."

"I'm sorry. If I had known Jenna was up there-," _Guilt._

"You couldn't have known, Becks. And by the time we got to them, they were gone, or we would have tried to save them, too. I thought Ted had the ring and then…" She didn't finish the sentence.

 _Wait._ "APOLLO?"

Aloy gave a hopeful smile. "Reintegrated. I think, when you're well enough, you should see something."

I tried to get up. "Let's go now, then."

But she quickly tightened her hold on me. "Becks, you're not fully healed yet. And…it's going to take some practice before you can move…normally again. That's what GAIA told me."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really? You're taking orders from an AI now?"

She frowned. "Hardly. But I'd rather not risk it. I…I can't lose you again, Becks."

I leaned in and kissed her – our lips moving together so naturally that there was no question in my mind that this was where I wanted, no, _needed_ to be. I grabbed her hair, her clothes, her face – anything I could touch to make sure that it was _her,_ that this was _real_ , and that we had won. I felt for her tongue with mine and then…she pulled away first, and I could see the familiar traces of hunger in her eyes – the same hunger I was feeling, only…

"We um…should probably wait until you're completely healed," she said, a sheepish grin crossing her reddening face.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Aloy, I did _not_ climb a fucking mountain and nearly die just to be told I have to stay in a bed for the rest of my life. And if I _am_ going to be stuck in a bed, I don't want to waste it _sleeping_."

She laughed – louder this time. "Don't worry. There will be time for that…um…that is…" A nervous chuckle. "I'm not really sure what happens to be honest."

 _I do._ "Well, I think, assuming that nothing else is trying to kill us or end the world, that I should probably actually learn how to be decent with a bow if I'm going to contribute to this," I gestured between us, "at all."

She nodded, and oddly enough, she seemed _very_ nervous. Which was strange, amusing, and amazing all at the same time. "I think I can help with that. It's uh…important that both…mates contribute something."

 _Oh._ I watched as she averted her eyes, looking at anything but me.

"Aloy."

She looked up. Waiting for the worst – it was so apparent. But I was done with that. Done with waiting for the worst – I had spent ten lifetimes dealing with the worst the world had to offer, compromising with it, breaking for it, bleeding for it - and I was over it.

"I'm yours." Those were the words I had wanted to say to her at the Bitter Climb. I didn't need any other words to explain to her what could not be explained. Not in one lifetime. Not in ten.

Her smile. That same one – slightly crooked, as though she were holding back everything the world had thrown at her – the secrets, the puzzles, the horrors, and the victories – to stay the composed, strong person that she was.

Her eyes shimmered, the tears having never really stopped. "I love you."

At that moment, I decided that I was okay. I'd spent too long looking for my purpose here, trying to understand accept what had been taken away from me and why. But I hadn't needed to. I didn't need to be defined to have acceptance. I didn't need a goal to have that purpose. My parents didn't make their sacrifices for that. Elisabet didn't give up her life for it, either. Jenna hadn't found it and she'd searched for years…and failed.

I just needed to _live_. And for now, maybe that was enough.

* * *

There was a faint hum as the solid-state lights in the room flickered on. It grew louder and then faded as the thousands of workstations were illuminated in a spiral that reached deep under the ground - the cradle extended far below what I had originally thought.

"Over here," Aloy said, one hand holding the small of my back and the other on my arm to steady my balance as we slowly made our way to the closest workstation. The movements were still very slow and mechanical, but I had been making visible progress over the past few months. Aloy said that when I was well enough, we'd go back to GAIA Prime and really study it. Until then, though, the trek to the Lyceum in the cradle in All Mother Mountain had been the greatest challenge I had undertaken with my new "upgrades".

"Sit," she said with a smile. I complied and shifted a bit to get comfortable in the very, very dusty chair. A screen for holographic projections rested on the desk in front of me. A Focus lay to the left of it and to the right, a datapad.

Standing behind me, Aloy placed her hands on my shoulders. "Are you ready?" Her voice betrayed her excitement but I could tell she was trying not to show it too much.

"Yeah…yeah, I think so. So…this worked for you, right?"

"Yes, Becks. You already asked me that. Please, just try it?" She leaned in and kissed my cheek.

I leaned into her touch before nodding – I took a deep breath before activating Dad's-well, _my_ Focus. I scanned the datapad.

A flicker of purple light. _Processing._

Aloy took my hand in hers. The hologram set up and came into view.

A woman. I never knew her, but her very presence gave away her identity.

 _"Hello, child. My name is Samina. Today is a big day. Your first day of school. There's so much for you to learn. So much promise and possibility…"_

THE END


	24. Epilogue

A knock on the door sounded. "Come in," I called.

The door to my bedroom opened slowly. Dennis poked his head in. _He looks so much like Dad, now._ Same eyes, same cheekbones, hell they even had similar haircuts. "What are you doing?" He flashed me a sly grin.

I gave my brother an unamused look and gestured to my Focus and datapad from the desk I sat at. "What's it look like I'm doing?"

"Still with the homework, huh?" he said and strode into the room before making a dramatic leap onto my bed. Half my pillows and the lone stuffed animal I kept there - a sea otter I'd had since I was very young - fell to the floor.

I huffed and shut off my Focus. "What the hell, Dennis?! I just cleaned up in here today!"

He obviously didn't care because the next thing he did was laugh and throw one of the remaining pillows at me. I stood up and caught it before swinging it at him, catching him in the shoulder.

"You're such a wimp." He grabbed the pillow from me and proceeded to hit me with it multiple times, ignoring my yells of protest.

Finally, I pushed him away and stormed back to my desk. "Did you just come here to annoy me or did you _actually_ need something?" I demanded, trying to smooth the mess my hair had become from Dennis' pillow attack.

My brother laughed again and sat down on the bed. "What? I can't come say 'hi'?"

I sighed. "Yeah, well, I was trying to get some studying done. I have an exam in two days and I haven't gotten any of the assignments done."

To my surprise, Dennis actually seemed concerned. "I don't think your professor will mind if you ask for more time, Becks, especially since things have been kind of shit lately."

I turned my Focus back on. "It's fine – I'll figure it out."

My brother looked around my room before directing his attention to the floor. He picked up the sea otter and moved it around in the air in front of me. "Mr. Otter doesn't want you to be _grumpy_ , Becks!" he said in a high-pitched voice.

I tried (and failed) not to smile. "I'm fine, Dennis. What were you doing?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. As usual. Waiting for the world to end, I guess. Like everyone else."

 _Fuck._ "Maybe…maybe the new one won't be so bad."

"Guess we'll know when we wake up, assuming it works." His face lit up. "Oh! I didn't show you yet!"

"Show me what?"

He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the finished tattoo he'd been getting done over the last few months. It was a beautiful collage of designs – all of them recognizable as I knew he had made them himself – that covered most of his arm and ended at his wrist. "Finally got that last part done. Maria's been really busy, but she had some time the other day and I figured I wanted to go out in style, you know?"

"It looks awesome, Dennis." I grinned. "Did you show Mom?"

He laughed. "Hell, no. She's going to kill me when she finds out." He placed the sea otter back on the bed. "I'll let you get back to it, then."

I nodded. "Yeah, okay. See you later."

He paused before leaving. "Oh, uh…did you ever end up talking to Jenna?"

 _Ah, shit._ "Oh…um, no. No, I didn't. I was going to last week when we hung out, but it just didn't happen." I sighed. "Not that it really matters, though, right?"

Dennis frowned. "I would just tell her, Becks. Better to know now than wonder what she would have said." He stretched his arms. "Anyway…I'll let you get back to it. See ya."

"Later," I said before turning back to my schoolwork.

* * *

"This feels…weird."

"It does. But I've found it helps, at least for me."

I sighed. A soft breeze blew, sending a cluster of fallen petals from some nearby flowering trees swirling around us. It was a clear day – nicer and warmer than it had been for months.

Aloy stood next to me, her arm around my waist. "Do you want me to wait inside?"

 _No. Never leave me._ "No, no. I…I think you should be here. I mean…" I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. "Please stay?"

She gave a solemn nod and pulled me closer to her for a moment before releasing me. "Of course."

I exhaled and took a few steps forward. _I can do this._ "All right. Um…hi, guys. I was just um…saying hi and…" I stopped and had to swallow to keep my composure. I felt Aloy's hand rest gently on my back. I took it as encouragement and pushed myself to continue.

"So, yeah…Mom, I met someone. Her name is-her name is Aloy. She um, she saved me and took care of me-she's still taking care of me. And I…well, I did some crazy stuff…" I laughed quietly. "You'd ah, probably be pissed at me. But I'm okay, now. Aloy's been helping me get back on my feet and um…well, I love her. And I…" I gave Aloy a quick glance – a faint smile. "I'm going to stay with her and…I guess I just wish you could have met her. But I'm all right – I promise." I sniffed as the tears began coming, but I simply wiped them and continued. Aloy leaned in – wrapped her arms around me from behind and kissed the back of my neck.

"I'm good," I reassured her, though my voice came out so broken that I'm not sure she was convinced. _I probably wouldn't be either._ I turned a bit and continued.

"Dad…you know, I was _really_ pissed that you didn't tell me about Ted and APOLLO but…I mean, I guess I can understand why you did what you did. I fixed it, though. APOLLO. It works again and I think it's going to take a while before it does what it's supposed to do but…these people have a better chance at not screwing up like-like we did. I t-think you'd be proud. At least, I hope you would."

Turned. "Dennis, um…you'd probably be happy to know that this new world doesn't suck as much as we thought it was going to." I heard Aloy laugh behind me. "You would have had so much fun with all the weird shit that goes on here – the people I've met…most of them have been pretty cool. You would have liked them. Also, the girls I've met have all been ridiculously good-looking." I wiped my eyes again, the blurriness temporarily put on hold. "I miss you. I miss you a lot."

 _Finally._ "J-Jenna. I wasn't-I wasn't going to do this, since things ended kind of badly with us but…but I think you…the _real_ you, has been gone for a lot longer. I thought maybe we could have been s-something more and I wish I could have been brave enough to tell you before it all went to shit. And uh…" More tears. More shakiness. Aloy held me tightly – my anchor. "Thank you for being there with me all these years. I'm…I'm sorry things didn't go the way we planned and…I hope you're better and that you're-that you're at peace."

Silence. Aloy released me. "Becks?"

I blinked and wiped my eyes again. "Yeah. I'm all right." I turned away from the four graves to face her. "Thank you for bringing back their…their ashes. All of them…even though-,"

She stopped me. Kissed the top of my head. "You don't need to thank me."

 _Right._ "I, um…I'm kind of hungry," I admitted. Not a huge step, but a next step. "Could we…?"

Aloy nodded and took my arm in hers. I could, for the most part, walk on my own without her help but I don't think I was quite ready to do things on my own just yet. I was fine with small steps – fine with waiting. We were in no hurry.

"Let's go."


End file.
